Matan Vilnai, an Israeli center-left politician and former major general in the Israel Defense Forces, speaks at a conference in Tel Aviv titled \u201cOpportunities for Israel Under Trump,” Jan. 28, 2025. Photo by Tomer Neuberg\/Flash90.<\/p>\n
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications who has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.<\/p>\n
(JNS) Having a military or intelligence background is no guarantee of being politically neutral or accurate in your conclusions. That\u2019s something that\u2019s been proven over and over again in both the United States and Israel. And that\u2019s especially true for the Jewish state, where the leadership of its citizen army has, from its origins in the pre-state era, always been mixed up in politics. And that has also applied to those who played key roles in its intelligence establishment.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why seasoned observers should be taking the letter sent to President Donald Trump by a group of 550 retired has-been Israeli senior military and intelligence officers under the cover of a group called Commanders for Israel\u2019s Security (CIS) with a shovel full of salt.<\/p>\n
The goal of the missive is for the United States to pressure the Israeli government. The signers want Washington to push Jerusalem to crack down on what it claims is a \u201crising swell in Jewish settler terror activity.” They claim the consequences of this will be greater than those of the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre and the war that resulted from it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all about politics<\/p>\n
But those who have embraced the letter\u2019s narrative need to understand what this controversy is really about. There is no epidemic of \u201cJewish terrorism” because such claims are, in the vast majority of cases, not merely false but motivated by something other than moral outrage about criminal behavior. The point of the exercise isn\u2019t a righteous stand against lawlessness or cruelty that undermines Israel\u2019s reputation before the world. It\u2019s about Israeli politics and the effort to defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this fall when the country goes to the polls.<\/p>\n
The CIS letter is roughly analogous to the one signed by 51 former U.S. intelligence officials who claimed in the last weeks of the 2020 presidential election that the revelations about corruption on Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop were \u201cRussian disinformation.” As it turned out, it was nothing of the kind; the letter was a political influence operation organized by President Joe Biden\u2019s campaign. In the case of the CIS letter, it, too, refers to a largely mythical threat-settler violence-and its purpose is entirely political.<\/p>\n
The message of the letter isn\u2019t likely to influence the Trump administration, but it is, unfortuntely, resonating with many American Jews who are unaware of the real situation. The claims that \u201csettler violence” is not merely rising but creating both a security crisis and a moral catastrophe for a nation whose government is somehow complicit in this crime wave have become a constant theme for critics of Israel. Worse than that, it is now begun to be widely accepted among liberal Zionists. Writers like New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who is an ardent supporter of Israel though also a bitter foe of both Netanyahu and Trump, have taken up the issue as something that Israelis and their friends should view as a serious threat to the cause of the Jewish state. (R. S. He should have known better. See Bret Stephen’s Dangerous Half Picture<\/a> and Regavim’s Position Paper<\/a>)<\/p>\n Jewish virtue signaling<\/p>\n The refrain of \u201csettler violence” has been used as an excuse to support efforts to sanction Israelis and Zionist organizations in Judea and Samaria. And the reaction from much of the Jewish establishment, as well as many ordinary Jews who consider themselves pro-Israel, is horror at the way these allegedly bad settlers are tarnishing the good name of Israel and all of the Jewish people. Such sanctions have the enthusiastic support of groups like the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.<\/p>\n Essentially, the settler-violence narrative has become the focus of a broad-based virtue signaling on the part of much of American Jewry. The point is to make it clear that they want nothing to do with an alleged population of hooligans whose actions, which supposedly terrorize innocent people, are both immoral and exacerbate an already intractable conflict.<\/p>\n To understand the letter and the way the issue is being used both in Israel and especially in the United States, you need to decode the language of those putting forth the proposition that settlers have embarked on a wave of terrorism that threatens to blow up the region. It can be found in the sentence that follows the phrase about the settler violence in which the retired officers complain about something else. They\u2019re also opposed to the Israeli \u201cgovernment policy of choking the Palestinian Authority (financially and otherwise).”<\/p>\n By this, they are referring to efforts by Jerusalem to hold the corrupt P.A. accountable for its ongoing subsidization of terror. Despite the passage of laws like the Taylor Force Act, which bans U.S. aid to the Palestinian Arabs as long as they continue their \u201cpay for slay” policy, whereby salaries and pensions are given to those who wound and murder Israelis and others, this vile practice continues. Money is also given to the families of terrorists, which only enables the violence.<\/p>\n The retired officers, however, are against such accountability. In a throwback to the misguided policies of both the U.S. and Israeli governments during the heyday of the failed Oslo Accords in the 1990s, they believe that ignoring Palestinian Arab violence and their fomenting of hatred for Israelis and Jews is essential to keeping the hope of a two-state solution alive.<\/p>\n Matan Vilnai, the leader of the CIS, is a retired general who had a brilliant military career that included leading an element of the 1976 Entebbe rescue mission in which the only casualty among the Israeli forces was the current prime minister\u2019s brother, Yonatan (\u201cYoni”) Netanyahu, who was killed while leading the effort. Vilnai went on to become deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces. Like everyone else on the list of former officers, he\u2019s entitled to respect and admiration for his courage and service to Israel. But he\u2019s also a former failed politician who represented the now-defunct Labor Party in the Knesset and served in ministerial positions, and was later appointed Israel\u2019s ambassador to China.<\/p>\n Reviving \u2018land for peace\u2019<\/p>\n The point of CIS is to promote the failed policies Vilnai championed during his time in politics, such as the Oslo-era idea that Israel could trade \u201cland for peace” to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. Its members have every right to advocate for that position, but Americans, who are inclined to stand up and salute any veteran of the IDF, Mossad or Shin Bet, should also understand what this means.<\/p>\n This concept, along with associated beliefs about propping up the P.A. and delegitimizing the more than half a million Jews who live in \u201csettlements” over the Green Line whose existence makes it harder for Israel to surrender territory, isn\u2019t just an expression of the politics of the Israeli past. They were literally and figuratively exploded by the P.A.\u2019s rejection of Israeli offers of statehood in 2000, which was followed by the Second Intifada (2001-2005), a terrorist war of attrition that took the lives of more than 1,000 Israelis and far more Palestinians. They were further discredited by what happened after the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon withdrew every soldier, settler and settlement from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005. That led directly to the creation of a Hamas terror state that ruled Gaza from 2007 to 2023 and ultimately to the assault on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023.<\/p>\n For the overwhelming majority of Israelis, the idea of reviving \u201cland for peace” isn\u2019t just ill-advised. It is utter insanity since that would enable the Palestinian Arabs to repeat the atrocities of Oct. 7 from the vastly larger and more strategic areas of Judea and Samaria. Unlike most liberal American Jews, who still back the idea of a two-state solution, they have been paying attention to what the Palestinian Arabs say, believe and do-and know that Israel has no viable peace partner.<\/p>\n The war to destroy the Jewish state, no matter where its borders might be drawn, is inextricably linked to the Palestinian Arabs\u2019 sense of their national identity. That\u2019s why they\u2019ve consistently rejected every peace offer and compromise, including those that would have given them an independent state, for the past century.<\/p>\n Even Netanyahu\u2019s main opponents in the upcoming Knesset election disavow any intention of pursuing such a path. But in the meantime, groups like CIS, along with American organizations like J Street, keep promoting these debunked notions. That is why they are desperate to portray Jews who live in Judea and Samaria as a menace not merely to their Arab neighbors, but also to the Jewish state and its standing in the world, in addition to the U.S.-Israel relationship.<\/p>\n Debunking a false narrative<\/p>\n The truth about settler violence contradicts not merely the assertion of the CIS and those regurgitating it in America, like Stephens. Though the Times columnist and others have mocked Netanyahu\u2019s claims that the problem is confined to approximately 150 \u201cjuvenile delinquents,”(and many consider that number inflated, r.s.) once you take a deep dive into the statistics about settler violence, you realize that the Prime Minister might not be wrong about that claim.<\/p>\n As JNS has reported, the assertion that Jews living in Judea and Samaria have been regularly engaging in a crime rampage is based on reports that classify as terror a great many things that no objective observer would call \u201cJewish terror.” A Kohelet Policy Forum report on the subject by Israeli legal scholars Eugene Kontorovich and Avraham Shalev details the facts that many of the alleged acts of settler violence consist mainly of Jews doing things like visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem or creating infrastructure in their communities.<\/p>\n More important is the fact that many of these alleged instances of Jewish terrorism represent incidents in which Jews have defended themselves against acts initiated by Arab terror. They also include times when the IDF has conducted counter-terror operations.<\/p>\n The narrative about “settler violence” also ignores the context of life in Judea and Samaria. Arab violence and terrorism aimed at Jews is a daily occurrence. It is so common that only the most violent incidents involving deaths at the hands of Palestinian Arab terrorists are reported, even in the Israeli press. The hundreds of thousands of Jews living in communities in the heart of their ancient homeland face constant harassment and violence. Rock-throwing at vehicles-something that American prosecutors would have no qualm about classifying as attempted murder since it is done with the express intent to harm the occupants of the car-is a constant threat. <\/p>\n As anyone who has taken the trouble to visit these \u201csettlements” – really just civilian communities – knows, Jewish towns and villages, as well as farms, must be guarded around the clock to protect their inhabitants.<\/p>\n The number of acts of Arab violence in the territories far outnumbers even most of the exaggerated claims of settler crimes.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say that a tiny minority of the Jewish population of these communities has never crossed the line from active defense to acts of retaliation. And when they do, they are often arrested by Israeli intelligence units and subject to the full force of the law. But such incidents are a small percentage of overall actions that the United Nations or others call settler \u201cviolence.”<\/p>\n So, to argue as Stephens does, that Netanyahu is lying and that a nation that can order its forces to perform amazing acts of derring-do when fighting Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas could, if it wished, put a quick end to a major crime problem is not merely missing the point of what is actually happening in Judea and Samaria. It\u2019s a false claim whose purpose is to bolster the idea that Netanyahu\u2019s government is hopelessly compromised by the presence of parties, like those led by ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. The assertion is that these controversial parties and leaders that support the Jews of Judea and Samaria have prevented the prime minister from doing his duty to uphold the law.<\/p>\n There are reasonable, even strong, arguments to make that someone like Ben-Gvir, who does and says things that are irresponsible and undermine Israel\u2019s reputation, is a liability to Netanyahu. In private, the prime minister probably thinks that himself. Netanyahu would almost certainly prefer some of the center-left parties as coalition partners for Likud and will likely try to get them to join him if he gets the chance to form another government after the Oct. 27 election. But except for the national unity government that existed for a time after Oct. 7, they have refused to join Netanyahu due to personal feuds. That has ensured that Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and the haredi parties are the Likud\u2019s only available partners.<\/p>\n Seen from this perspective, the entire discussion becomes easily understandable as a tactic to persuade people not to vote for Netanyahu or his allies.<\/p>\n Plenty of legitimate reasons exist for Israelis not to want Netanyahu to continue in office, including his lengthy tenure as prime minister and the fact that Oct. 7 happened on his watch. Yet it should be remembered that his most likely would-be successors were just as guilty as Netanyahu of subscribing to the \u201cconceptzia” idea that Hamas could be bought off from attacking Israel as it did that Black Shabbat. That goes double for everyone in the military and intelligence establishment that sold Israelis this false doctrine. <\/p>\n Indeed, the entire point of the CIS initiative is to replicate the pre-Oct. 7 situation in Gaza in Judea and Samaria, with the same tragic results its most likely consequence.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s a reminder to those citing the CIS letter that blind faith in military and intelligence officials-many of whom, like Vilnai, have political motives-is almost always a mistake.<\/p>\n Coercing Israel<\/p>\n Once you strip away the skewed statistics, emotive rhetoric and virtue-signaling about disassociating from Jews who are \u201cbad” settlers, the talk of settler violence is revealed as a political tactic aimed at toppling Netanyahu. The main reason why the Israeli opposition and its allies in the United States talk about the subject is to paint the Jewish population of the territories as a bunch of violent thugs, and in doing so, convince the electorate that they should be sacrificed in some chimerical \u201cland for peace” agreement.<\/p>\n Yet since the Israeli left knows very well that the Israeli public will never vote for such a thing, they must resort, as they have for decades, to pleas for Washington to pressure Jerusalem to adopt policies the voters have rejected, as well as to efforts to delegitimize the prime minister and his allies.<\/p>\n Those whom American supporters of Israel look to as champions of their cause, like Stephens, should not have fallen for this tactic since it does as much harm to Israel\u2019s reputation as it does to the government. That he and others like him have done so speaks volumes about their hostility to Netanyahu and Trump. Stephens\u2019 readers deserved better from him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matan Vilnai, an Israeli center-left politician and former major general in the Israel Defense Forces, speaks at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[141520,85,46,129194,112,43],"class_list":["post-571692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-bret-stephens","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-jonathan-s-tobin","tag-judea-and-samaria","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}