00:00Yossi Meckelberg is Associate Fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the London-based think tank Chatham
00:07House.
00:08Yossi, welcome back. What does this siege tell us about settler violence in the West Bank?
00:17Good afternoon. Thank you for having me.
00:20As your correspondent said, there is a constant increase, steady increase in the settler violence.
00:27It's terrorism, because it has a political aim to intimidate Palestinians.
00:35In this case, it's an Area B under the security responsibility of Israel.
00:43It's the responsibility of the Israel Defense Force to ensure that this doesn't happen.
00:48But we see time and again in different communities, whether cutting all his knees, attacking houses, burning cars.
01:00We see, and in some occasion, even shooting and killing Palestinians.
01:06And the problem is that it's done, in most cases, with complete impunity.
01:12There are hardly any of them, and in court, let alone, you know, not only charged by convicted of anything.
01:20And the more they see that nothing happens, there is no response from the government,
01:27there is not much response from the international community, the more they feel emboldened.
01:31And why this, why now? I mean, what is driving this sharp rise?
01:39Well, I think it's, it's, it's, it's a process of the last few years, bearing in mind.
01:45There is a minister within the defense minister, ministry, which is also the finance minister,
01:51Bitzalel Smotrich, who is in charge of the civil administration.
01:55And as a result of it, and he's himself a settler and from one of the most extreme right-wing,
02:03a politician in Israel.
02:05So this, this enables this, this activity.
02:10You have the minister in charge of national security.
02:14And as a result of, also of the border guard, is Itamar Ben-Fir, again, one of the most extreme
02:21politicians in Israel, again, a settler.
02:26And this, this emboldened the settlers.
02:28They think that this is their time.
02:30They're also afraid of the, of the election, that they will lose power.
02:34And they try to make, to create facts on the ground that will be very difficult for any government to
02:42change.
02:42Their aim is very clear, to intimidate Palestinians, if possible, to force them off, off, off their land with, with
02:51an outlook to eventually to annex the entire West Bank.
02:54Very briefly, the U.S. ambassador, Mike Huckabee, issuing this unusual strong condemnation, calling this siege an horrific act of
03:03terror.
03:04Could any pressure from Washington make any difference?
03:10I think it should.
03:11And I think the pressure should come.
03:12It's long overdue because this is ongoing for a very, very long time.
03:17We'll see if beyond condemnation, there is also pressure on the Israeli government, at least in this case, to ensure
03:24that all these settlers are stopped and removed from the, from this village.
03:29Yossi, good to see you.
03:30Thank you very much, Yossi Mecklenburg, the associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa programme at the think
03:35tank Chatham House.
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