Major-General Avi Bluth, the Israeli commander responsible for the occupied West Bank, did not know his comments would be leaked when he boasted of the success of Israel’s policies in the occupied territory. According to Haaretz, he claimed the army was “killing like we haven’t killed since 1967” and “turning villages into conflict zones.”
Critically, Bluth admitted to a two-tier firing policy: actively avoiding firing at Israeli settlers throwing stones at Israeli forces, while freely firing at Palestinians doing the same. “This [stone throwing] is terrorism, not popular or grassroots terrorism – there’s only popular [‘folk’] dancing,” he said, adding that the military had killed 42 Palestinian stone-throwers in 2025. Firing at Israeli settlers, however, was to be avoided due to “profound societal consequences.”
Al Jazeera approached Bluth for comment but received no reply. Rights groups say the double standard is no surprise to residents of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. However, as Israeli society veers sharply to the right, such comments are increasingly a point of pride, regardless of the human cost.
“This is nothing,” Orly Noy, editor of Local Call, told Al Jazeera, describing how Israel’s far-right has taken over institutions. “A few years ago, Breaking the Silence showed that Israeli soldiers were unaware they had to protect Palestinians from settler violence. Now they really don’t care.”
In March, Israel passed legislation allowing the death penalty only for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. A month earlier, it introduced a bill described as “de facto annexation,” entrenching separate legal regimes for Palestinians and Israeli settlers.
“This isn’t new,” said Yair Dvir of B’Tselem. “These are the policies underpinning Israel’s apartheid. What’s new is that such statements have become everyday. The international community is not stopping Israel, the US is backing it, so there is no reason to hide apartheid and ethnic cleansing.”
According to the UN, 12 Palestinians have been killed in settler attacks since February 28, with hundreds injured and displaced. In contrast, only 10 Palestinians were killed by settlers in all of 2025. The Israeli military killed at least 226 Palestinians in the same period.
MP Aida Touma-Sliman described a visit to the village of Duma, site of a 2015 settler attack that killed three Palestinians, including an 18-month-old burned alive. “Both times, I felt the same hopelessness – nobody was there to defend them,” she said. The only hope, she added, lies in upcoming elections to “vote these fascists out of government.”
Source: www.aljazeera.com