On the eve of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington last week, Trump received a letter from Matan Vilnai, the chairman of Commanders for Israel’s Security, an organization of retired officials who served in the Israeli armed forces and intelligence agencies.
Vilnai’s impassioned letter was not about Israel’s current confrontation with Iran or Hezbollah, but about the upsurge of violence perpetrated against Palestinian Arabs by a small band of wild Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
His cri de coeur arrived at the White House shortly after settlers went on yet another violent rampage and after the Israel Defence Forces and the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency released a report showing that the number of attacks by extremist Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank rose by 27 percent in 2025 compared to the previous year.
Describing his letter as an “urgent alert,” Vilnai warned Trump that “escalating violence,” unless “arrested swiftly and decisively,” carries “severe ramifications for both Israeli security and U.S. regional interests.”
“No one but you, Mr. President, can avert this calamity,” wrote Vilnai, a former deputy chief of staff of the Israeli armed forces and a onetime ambassador to China and cabinet minister. “Consequently, we earnestly hope you will use your upcoming meeting with our prime minister to convey a firm and clear message in this regard.”
Vilnai’s warning is significant because it comes not from one of Israel’s critics but from a veteran of its own security establishment. When former generals argue that extremist settlers pose a strategic threat to Israel, the issue can no longer be dismissed as a marginal problem.
It has yet to be ascertained whether Trump raised this issue with Netanyahu, or whether he intends to pursue it at a later date. But what clearly stands out here is that Netanyahu was not the recipient of Vilnai’s letter.
Netanyahu has condemned settler violence, which has been a perennial problem for decades now, but he has done very little, or nothing, about it. At least two of his ministers, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, live in West Bank settlements and have yet to criticize the horrific excesses of radical settlers.
Since Netanyahu needs their support if his coalition government is to survive, he has studiously refrained from taking concrete action against these vigilantes, thereby giving them and their supporters the impression that he does not care about this mounting disgrace.
As Vilnai pointed out in his letter, Israeli security agencies excel in dealing with Hamas and other West Bank Palestinian terror groups, but are “severely constrained” when it comes to Jewish terrorists.
And in an allusion to Smotrich, Ben Gvir and their fellow travellers in Netanyahu’s cabinet, Vilnai wrote, “It is no secret that certain members of our current government orchestrate much of this chaos, including by shielding their followers — who are armed and driven by messianic impulses — from the law and its enforcement. As a result, our successors at the helm of Israel’s security services face an impossible dilemma: follow their professional judgment and duty, which demand determined law enforcement, or adhere to the directives of political leadership, as is required in a democracy.”
Vilnai warned Trump that “the rising swell in Jewish settler terror activity” may turn out to be more catastrophic than the attack launched by Hamas on October 7, 2023. “This trajectory threatens to devastate Israeli security, undermine U.S. interests, and shatter regional stability … The trend is clear and the evidence is in plain sight. Let us not be blindsided again.”
This indeed is a problem that cannot be swept under the proverbial rug any longer.
Last year, the Israel Defence Forces and the Shin Bet recorded 867 such incidents, compared to 682 in 2024, representing an increase of 27 percent. In 2023, the year thousands of Hamas terrorists swept into southern Israel, 1,045 incidents were reported.
The attacks occur on almost a daily basis and largely go unpunished. Prosecutions of Jewish extremists are rare, and convictions are even rarer. As the Times of Israel noted, “Critics have accused the government of shrugging off the attacks.”
It appears that Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history, turns a callous blind eye to settler violence.
The Israel Defence Forces and the Shin Bet estimate that upwards of 300 Jewish extremists, 70 of whom are considered hardcore fanatics, have been involved in violent attacks. They largely live in 42 illegal outposts in the West Bank.
In the most recent incident, which occurred on July 31, settlers stormed into the West Bank Palestinian town of Surif and attacked residents, damaged property, set fire to cars, and sprayed Hebrew graffiti on buildings. Three Palestinians were reportedly wounded. No arrests were made, the perpetrators having fled before Israeli soldiers arrived on the scene.
The debate over settler violence in the West Bank was earlier thrust into the spotlight following a deadly incident in the Palestinian village of Tell during which two Israelis – an Israeli army commander and a guard at a nearby Jewish settlement – and four Palestinians were killed.
In the wake of this bloodshed, gangs of settlers attacked Palestinian towns and villages, setting alight two mosques, a residential building and several vehicles and spraying graffiti calling for “revenge.”
It is incumbent on the Israeli government to stop this wanton and intolerable violence, which further angers and radicalizes ordinary Palestinians and smears Israel in the eyes of international public opinion.
In fact, this explosive problem transcends settler violence per se. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which is inhabited by approximately three million Palestinians and 500,000 Israeli Jews, is untenable and unjust and should end with a negotiated two-state solution.
The violence that Vilnai referred to in his letter will likely persist until Israel and the Palestinians reach a fair and viable political agreement that respects the aspirations and needs of both sides. Until then, Jewish and Palestinian violence will continue to erupt in the West Bank, with all its attendant consequences.