Gideon Levy: don’t say you weren’t warned

The next surprise won’t come as a surprise. It may be less deadly than the previous one, October 7, but its price will be steep. When it lands on top of us, leaving us stunned by the enemy’s brutality, nobody will be able to claim they didn’t know it was coming.

The military will be unable to make that claim, because it constantly warned about it – but didn’t lift a finger to prevent it. So the Israel Defense Forces’ responsibility will be just as great as in the massacre in the south, and no less significant than that of settlers and the politicians who are allegedly preventing it from acting.

The next pressure cooker about to blow up in our faces is boiling in the West Bank. The IDF knows this; its commanders won’t stop warning about it. These are hypocritical, sanctimonious warnings meant to cover the military’s behind. The warnings are shameless, as the IDF, with its own hands and soldiers, is fanning the flames no less than the settlers.

Pretending that we might find ourselves fighting on another front just because of the settlers is disingenuous and duplicitous. Had the IDF wanted to, it could have acted to calm the tensions right away. Had it wanted to, it would have acted against the settlers, like a normal military is required to treat local militias and armed groups.

Israel’s enemies in the West Bank include the settlers, and the IDF is doing nothing to stop them. Its soldiers actively take part in pogroms, disgracefully abusing residents – photographing and humiliating them, killing and arresting them, destroying memorials, like the one for Yasser Arafat in Tulkarm, and snatching thousands of people from their beds. It all adds fuel to the fire and escalates tensions.

Vengeful soldiers, envious of their compatriots in Gaza, are going wild in the occupied territories, with a light and enthusiastic finger on the trigger. Almost 200 Palestinians have been killed there since the war started, and nobody is stopping them. No regional commander, division commander or field commanders are stopping the rampage. They must want this, too; it’s hard to believe that they’re also paralyzed by fear of the settlers. They’re considered courageous, after all.

The settlers are ecstatic. The smell of blood and destruction rising from Gaza is spurring them to run riot like never before. There’s no need for any more fairy tales about lone wolves or bad seeds. The settlement enterprise, with its host of political functionaries and funding, isn’t fighting against the pogroms emanating from it. The war is their payday, their big chance. Under the cover of the war and Hamas’ brutality, they have seized the opportunity to drive as many Palestinians as possible from their villages – especially the poorer, smaller ones – ahead of the great expulsion to come after the next war, or the one after it.

I visited the no man’s land in the South Hebron Hills this week. Things have never looked like this before. Each settler is now a member of a “security team.” Each “security team” is an armed, savage militia with a license to abuse livestock herders and farmers and expel them.

Sixteen villages in the West Bank have already been abandoned, and the expulsion continues at full steam. The IDF essentially doesn’t exist. Israel, which was never interested in what happens in the West Bank, will now certainly hear nothing about it. The international media is keenly interested; they understand where this is going.

Behind all this is the same Israeli arrogance that allowed the surprise of October 7 to occur. The Palestinians’ lives are seen as trash. Dealing with their fate and the occupation is seen as an obsessive nuisance. The prevailing idea is that if we ignore it, the stars will somehow align.

What’s happening in the West Bank reflects an unbelievable state of affairs. Even after October 7, Israel has learned nothing. If the current disaster in the south fell upon us after years of siege, denial, and indifference, the next one will fall because after its predecessor, Israel failed to take the warnings, threats, and serious situation seriously.

The West Bank is moaning in pain, and nobody in Israel is heeding its cry for help. The settlers are running wild and nobody in Israel is trying to stop them. How much more can the Palestinians take? Israel will have to pay the bill for whatever happens. It’ll be cold or hot, but very bloody in either case.