Recycling Media “Setter Violence” Narrative

Avi Abelow

Here we go again. Another recycled media narrative about “settler violence.” Stick with me, as the reality is very different. Read on to see what’s really going on.

Let’s call it what it is: the problem isn’t the settlers or the hilltop youth. The problem is the fact that the state of Israel, the security establishment and legal establishment continue to refuse to act like a true sovereign in Judea and Samaria, and properly protect the lives of the close to 1 million Jewish civilians who live there.

For decades the Arab Muslims in Judea & Samaria terrorize innocent Jews, sometimes brutally murdering whole families, without the proper punishment to stop it and the Palestinian Authority continues to exist while it pays salaries to terrorists (the biggest proof that it supports terror and must be disbanded).

Arabs steal land in Judea and Samaria each and every day with the blatant support of international organizations and far-left Jewish organizations, and the EU and UN continue to finance illegal Arab Muslim land grabs throughout Judea and Samaria by building illegal roads and communities across Judea and Samaria.

As the IDF, security services and legal authorities do nothing to end this situation, many youths, from Judea and Samaria and all of Israel, have filled the void to protect our lives, and our lands, with their bare hands by acting as a deterrent against the daily evil that surrounds us.

Meanwhile, the “deep state” individuals and organizations that every so often push the “settler violence” narrative in the media, hope to delegitimize all us proud settler Jews in Judea & Samaria, to deflect from their failures/corruption, deflect from the true jihadi Muslim enemy out to destroy us all, and to try to create a reality to have us all expelled from our homes in Judea & Samaria for being “the obstacle to peace”. That is their ultimate goal.

If Israel acted as a true sovereign, punished every terrorist, terror organization (like the Palestinian Authority and Hamas) and their supporters, and protected Israeli citizens properly, there wouldn’t be a single settler kid on a hilltop, and the manufactured headlines about “settler violence” would never appear.

I’ve stood on those Judean hilltops myself as part of my IDF service in this war effort, alongside the very young men and women the media now calls “violent settlers.” I know them personally. I’ve served beside them.

These kids aren’t thugs. They’re idealists. They’re the sons and daughters of families who believe in the Jewish mission to protect and rebuild our ancestral land. They live under constant threat, surrounded by Palestinian Authority Arab Muslims on all sides who have thousands of illegal weapons. These unbelievable youth are out sheparding farm animals all on their own without guns, patrolling at nights watching over roads where terrorists have struck, and knowing that every night could bring another infiltration into a Jewish community.

The fear is real. I know. I was out on those hilltops with them at night. And they do this every night, overcoming the fear.

They understand the jihadi mentality not from theory but from experience. The Arabs try to encroach on their lands all the time. Trying to steal their livestock and destroy property. They know that Israel survives only when Jews stand strong and unafraid, not waiting for the IDF to appear after the terror is committed. And they refuse to apologize for defending themselves, their communities, and the Land of Israel.

After October 7th, more and more Israelis have begun to understand what these youth have known all along: our hold on Judea and Samaria isn’t a fringe project, it’s the front line of national defense to ensure that an Oct. 7th can’t happen from the Arab Muslims in Judea and Samaria.

The hilltop farms on those hills protect the heart of Israel. Without them, the Palestinian Authority would seize those ridges piece by piece, creating a de facto state and cutting Israel in half, and endangering all Israeli citizens even more.

Yet instead of gratitude for saving Israel, these young guardians are smeared as the problem, as if the real threat to Israel’s stability isn’t Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but dozens of Jewish teenagers with tzitzit and Israeli flags.

These youth aren’t driven by hate; they’re driven by reality and belief. They know that if they are not on these hilltops, the Arabs would take them from us and endanger our lives. And they believe, as generations of Jews have, that God chose the Jewish people to live in His holy land, to sanctify it through our presence and our courage. In every generation, Jews have been called to push back the forces of evil and chaos that rise against us, and these young people are doing exactly that.

They see the terror and terror infrastructure right in front of them, and they are provoked by the terrorist farmers and foreign-funded provocateurs each and every day. So, they step in where the system fails. Their mission isn’t vengeance. It’s protection, protection of life, of holiness, and of the divine purpose of the Jewish people in our land.

The rest of the nation should be thanking these youth, not demonizing them. They are protecting us all. They are heroes. They are living the covenant that our ancestors dreamed of fulfilling.

And yet, open a paper or scroll social media, and you’ll see the same refrain: “settler violence,” “Jewish extremists,” “pogroms.” It’s the latest moral panic to try to whitewash the evil of our enemies by making us Jews sound worse.

Social media shows blurry clips of masked men on hilltops, fires in the background. It’s easy to believe, until you remember how the same international chorus lied about Israel committing genocide in Gaza, recycling Hamas propaganda and fake casualty data.

Back then, even the UN, human-rights NGOs, and major news networks echoed Hamas talking points. Now, they’re doing it again, this time including much Israel/Jewish media, all about “settler violence.”

Here’s what the media hides: Most so-called ‘settler violence’ never happens, just straight out lies like in the headline of the recent fire incident, first reported as “settler violence” and then corrected to reflect a fire in an Arab home.

Something bad happens to an Arab? Easy, blame it on the “settler violence”. Nobody cares about the facts anyway.

Just as the burned Church back in the summer was blamed on settler youth, while it was done by the Arabs, and no Church was even burned, just the greenery that surrounded an ancient stone Church building. It was the settler youth who ran out to put out the fire, even though that footage was used to smear them as the arsonists. These media stories literally can not be believed.

Then there are the incidents that begin with deliberate provocation.

Terror groups and PA operatives pose as “farmers,” approaching Jewish fields with cameras ready, often escorted by foreign anarchists who come specifically to film confrontations. They taunt, attach the Jewish shepards, throw stones at them, or trespass on Jewish land.

When Jewish youth defend themselves or push them back, that’s when the filming starts, and the world sees only the second half of the story. The setup, the provocation, and the constant harassment of Jewish communities or shepards are conveniently erased.

It’s a cynical media operation designed to create viral clips, NGO reports, and more international “condemnation” of Israel across the global media.

Yes, once in a while some Jewish youth might get out of hand. Does that make it “settler violence”, justifying a worldwide campaign to delegitimise all Jewish settlers in Judea & Samaria? NO

What we are experiencing is clearly a propaganda narrative against us.

Why does this narrative persist? Because the tiny clique, deep-state establishment, the same entrenched powers being exposed today in the legal establishment for corruption and politicization, needs a new villain to deflect from themselves and redirect to their campaign to expel us Jews from Judea & Samaria.

Rather than confronting the true evil that threatens Israel and the terror networks embedded in our midst, they redirect public anger toward the religious, patriotic Jews who refuse to bow to their failed ideology. Because to the deep state, the biggest danger to Israel is not Hamas, it’s the religoius, right-wing “messianic” Jews, and what better way to delegitimize them than by pushing the blood libel of “settler violence”.

This political left deep state elite have turned the moral compass upside down: those fulfilling God’s purpose, fellow Jews also under attack from the same jihadi Muslim enemy, are branded as extremists and a danger to the state, while those who enable terror and commit horrific acts of terror against us must be appeased.

The truth is that these “settler youth” are our modern Maccabees, strong, moral, and unafraid. They protect the rest of us while the world lectures them from afar. They farm, build, and defend, often without thanks and sometimes without backup.

They are not the danger. They are the shield between Israel and chaos.

I’ve sat with these hilltop youth and done guard duty with them on the hilltops. Yes, some of them hate our jihadi Muslim enemies, as we all should because our jihadi Muslim enemies are a modern Amalek, literally representing the worst evil that exist on the earth today, but our youth talk about faith, responsibility, and destiny. They believe, as I do, that we are living in a time of divine opportunity, a time to restore holiness to the land and strength to the Jewish people.

So here’s my invitation: come to the hilltops of Judea and Samaria and see for yourself.

Join me on a visit to these hilltops. Meet the youth, the families, the soldiers, and the farmers. Walk their fields. Hear their stories.

You’ll see that what the world calls “extremism” is actually faith in action, the fulfillment of a promise thousands of years old.

If you care about Israel’s future, don’t let anyone tell you these young heroes are villains. Stand with them. Visit them. Support them. Because they are not the problem, they are the living expression of God’s covenant with His people in His land.

The problem is fellow Jews who are excited to throw their own brethren under the bus, shame them, smear them, delegitimize them, because they foolishly believe that their fellow Jews are more dangerous to the Jewish people than Hamas.

Thankfully, this group of people is very small, and grows smaller by the day, but they still have enough power, in enough positions, to push their evil manipulative agenda against us proud, Jewish settlers.

But hold your heads up high. We survived the Egyptians. We survived the Romans. We survived the Nazis. We are surviving the evil of our jihadi Muslim enemy today. And we will survive the efforts of this small elite within us as well.

Am Yisrael Chai!!!