The Daily - Israel's Existential Threat From Within

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

Warning: this episode contains descriptions of violence.In the last year, the world’s eyes have been on the war in Gaza, which still has no end in sight. But there is a conflict in another Palestinian territory that has gotten far less attention, where life has become increasingly untenable: the West Bank.Ronen Bergman, who has been covering the conflict, explains why things are likely to get worse, and the long history of extremist political forces inside Israel that he says are leading the country to an existential crisis.Guest: Ronen Bergman, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine.Background reading: How extremist settlers took over Israel.What is the West Bank and who controls it?For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is a special episode of The Daily. The eyes of the world have been on the war in Gaza, which has no end in sight. But there is another conflict in the other Palestinian territory that has gotten less attention, where life has become increasingly untenable. The West Bank. They demolished the school. They demolished most of the houses. Overnight in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military has carried out new raids.

It's part of an upsurge in violence across the West Bank involving Palestinian armed groups, Israeli settlers, and Israeli forces. Today, I talked to my colleague Ronan Bergman about why things are likely to get worse, and the long history of the extremist political forces inside Israel that he says are leading the country to an existential crisis. It's Wednesday, September 18th. So Ronan, as we've seen in recent weeks, the war in Gaza is nowhere near a ceasefire. And in the West Bank, there's this increase in violence, a rise in Israeli and Palestinian terrorism. And you and our colleague, Mark Mazzetti, have not only been reporting on what's going

on there now, but you've also done an extensive investigation about why this is happening. And what you found is that it has everything to do with the rise of the extreme right in Israel. Yes, there is a huge escalation of violence in the West Bank right now, and it can be explained by a long and complicated story. It's a story of 60 years' internal battle in Israel that has brought us to this moment where many in Israel who want a lawful democratic country

are now losing out to ultra nationalist heart right extremists who are now in powerful position in the Israeli government and who are dragging the country to the brink of an existential crisis. All right, so where did you start the reporting that led to this conclusion? So, back in 2015, one event really convinced me to pursue this story. ...fury today at a senseless crime in a region that has seen so many. When Jewish terrorists burned down a house in the West Bank village called Duma, arsonists throwing fire bombs into the house, setting it alight, and killed the Palestinian family, three people, including a toddler,

the victim this time a Palestinian toddler, 18-month-old Ali Diwabsheh, and it was horrifying. The attack is believed to have been carried out by militant Jewish settlers who scrawled menacing messages on the walls of the family's home. And so as I was reporting about this horrible incident, I spoke with a person called Amir Yalon, Major General Amir Yalon, who was the former chief of the Shin Bet, that's the Israeli security agency, the sort of equivalent to the FBI. And I asked him something like, how come the Shin Bet is just unable to prevent this kind

of horrible, horrible attack? I had this question in my mind for years because the attack on Douma, on that poor family, was not an isolated thing. For decades, there have been many attacks on Palestinians from Jewish extremists, destruction of property, violence, killing of cattle, and cases of murder. And because the Shin Bet is known, has a long time reputation, at least until October 7, that it's famous for protecting Israeli citizens from all kinds of terrorist attacks from Arab militants.

I try to understand from Ayelon, why can they do the same for Jewish terrorists as they are doing for Palestinian terrorists. There must be some kind of equivalent lines in how you catch a terrorist. But he said, don't you know, that the Shin Bet is plugged into a much, much bigger phenomenon of the failure of the whole Israeli administration, the defense establishment, the prosecutors, the judges, the police, all of them in enforcing the law on the extreme settlers and the ultra-right nationalists in Israel.

He said it all comes from the political level. The cabinet, the government, the prime minister, they are signaling to the Shin Bet and the other relevant law enforcement agencies that if a Jew is killed by a terrorist is horrible. But if an Arab is killed by a terrorist, it's not good, but it's not that bad. And then on top of that, while asking sources, while asking Israeli officials, this same question about investigating Jewish extremism, other officials and former officials made very dark predictions.

Some of them said that because this violence against Arabs is tolerated, it won't be long until the lawless, until the fugitives, until those Jewish extremists, sometimes Jewish terrorists will become the law, will become a legitimate part of the Israeli government. So these officials almost 10 years ago were saying to you, Jewish terrorists are so tolerated by the Israeli government that they will one day become the law. They will become that government. Yes. You know, sometimes people come to me,

sources, officials, NGOs, and tell me stories that I titled them, bad to be true. It's like, you know, it's a script, nice script for a Netflix episode. But, you know, it's too much. But when taking a much deeper dive with my great colleagues and friends, Mark Mazetti and Nathan Oldenheimer, for over eight and a half years, we talked to hundreds of people, including many, many high-rank Israeli government officials, American government officials, former heads of the Shin Bet and other agencies, former

prime ministers. We looked at different video documentation of programizing Arab village. We looked at massive th throngs of secret documents. And at the end of that long, long journey, what we found was not only that the dark predictions of those officials from years ago became the reality. But also that this happened because the state of Israel was just looking the other way. After many years of reporting in Israel, it is clear to me that at the end of the day,

Israel will be able to defend itself from outside enemies. Where the real danger lies is inside. It's about the challenging to the foundation of the Jewish state as a democratic and as a lawful country that protects everybody and enforce the law on everybody. And the depth of the challenge threatens the foundation of the country, of my country. So Ronan, just to prepare people here, the history of all of this that you're outlining, it is so thoroughly reported, very sweeping.

It spans many, many decades. And it's really the story of the battle over what Israel should be and how the ultra-right's vision of Israel seems to be winning that battle now. So where should we start? So I think a good point to start is at the end of the Six-Day War, June 1967. The whole Middle East was thrown into war. The third time since its birth as an independent state, Israel is embroiled in a war with the Arab nations that surround it. But it lasted only six days. Israel took the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt,

and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. In practical terms, Israel seized territory twice its original size, expanding in all directions, taking control over a territory with something like a million Palestinians, signaling an unbelievable triumphant victory against three massive Arab armies. And the transition was swift. The citizens of Israel woke up and felt now they are a superpower. And from the first day, the first day after the war, it was unclear what Israel is going

to do with this massive territory that has just ceased. Many people in Israel thought that they need to barter back the territories for peace, basically returning it to the Arab countries or creating a new Palestinian state for those million Palestinians and others in the diaspora. But other people with ultra-nationalist religious background, according to their belief, seizing those territories was the hand of God. It was the Jewish people coming back to the biblical Israel. That land, the territories, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, according to their belief was promised to the Jewish people by God, making them the Jews, the Israelis, the owner of this place. So these are two very different reactions to Israel suddenly being in control of all

this land. One side sees this new land as something that they can trade to establish peace and security for Israelis, essentially a bargaining chip. Another side sees this new land as something that they can trade to establish peace and security for Israelis, essentially a bargaining chip. Another side sees this as a chance to keep the land for Jews. Yes, exactly. Okay, so with these two visions, I want to talk about who is in each camp. Let's start with the people who don't want to keep the territories like the West Bank forever, and who want to barter the land back for peace.

Who are they? territories like the West Bank forever, and who want to barter the land back for peace. Who are they? So, they are largely people who are sort of aligned politically with the original founders of Israel. People who are mostly secular, more leaning to the left, people who want to have a democratic Jewish state that ensures the security of Jews, but also understands that the Arab neighbors, the neighboring states of Israel, and of course the Palestinians, they will never accept Israel taking over this entire territory.

And the fact that they don't have their own Palestinian state, this will always be a major obstacle to any positive development in the Middle East. Those people are open to negotiate an Israeli withdrawal and establishment of a Palestinian state, and they are primarily interested in Israel's security over everything else. Security to them means not just defending yourself from outside forces, but also having a democratic, lawful state. And what about the other side?

The people who want to make territory like the West Bank part of Israel permanently. Who are they and what's their backstory? You know, it's not monolithic, but broadly speaking, they are like two groups. One, let's call them secular right-wingers. They potentially could discuss an establishment of a Palestinian state, but they say that from a sheer point of security, it would be much safer for Israel to control the West Bank rather than to give the West Bank to another state, another entity that they are concerned will become hostile to Israel.

And then there is another group who are looking at the situation from a very different point of view. They believe that by actually controlling these lands, they could hasten the arrival of the Messiah. And in order to make sure that this Messiah will come as soon as possible, the right way to do that would be to establish settlements in those occupied territories to make sure they will never be given back to an Arab nation or Palestinian people. But Israel got control over these territories in the war, so why this need to settle them? So the official relationship is it's an occupied territory.

And occupied territory, according to international law, everybody are under the authority of the military commander and under the rule of military law. But many of those ultra-nationalist religious Israelis, they realize that military can be ordered to evacuate during some kind of a peace treaty, because military does what it's told to do. But when you have, at the beginning, small outposts, then settlements, then cities, those are going to be very hard to evacuate. All right. So Israel gets this land. Some Israelis see this land as leverage, something to trade with Arab adversaries or for a Palestinian state. But this other group of religious ultra-nationalists

are like, no, all that land is ours by divine right. And we don't ever want to trade this land away for anything. And the best way to prevent the land from being given away is by settling the land themselves, knowing that it would be harder to give away if there are Jewish Israelis living there. Yes, exactly. But there's one small problem.

It was illegal under the military orders, the military that governs these territories. So what these religious ultra-nationalists wanted to do is just not allowed by the state. But they started taking action towards that goal anyway. So the central ultra-nationalist religious group was called Gush Emunim, the block of the faithful. And so one day in 1975, they, Gush Emunim, suddenly came to a deserted Jordanian military

camp in the West Bank and declared that this is their outpost, bloody violating orders from the military that this is totally, totally illegal. And instead of ordering the military, Shimon Peres, who was in charge of the military and the IDF and therefore in charge of the West Bank, he was not a settler or an ultra-nationalist supporter in any way. I don't think he liked them. But fearing to confront them and their base, he allowed them to stay. And in order not to call that just impunity and disregarding the law that he was supposed

to enforce, he called that a working camp. So Paris was creating an alibi for himself and for the state and those tricks this euphemism this this laundry of words and terminology. Is the first move that showed the settlers that even if they do something that is bluntly illegal, if they are stubborn enough, they will win. Right. Which seems like it would only embolden them to learn that they can get away with breaking the law. Yes.

It gave them massive backwind. And so that early settlement, it grew. It grew into many more settlements that spread across the West Bank and eventually some years later to Gaza. And at that point in the late 70s, the settlement project by those ultra-nationalists was fully underway and they thought they wouldn't have any more resistance because in 1977, for the first time in Israel history, the right, the Likud party, is in control of the country and it's led by Menachem Begim. And typically leaders on the right were supportive of the settlement, not so eager to negotiate with Arab neighbors peace in return for land.

But Beggin surprised everybody. Peace now celebrates a great victory for the nations of Egypt and Israel and for all mankind. At the first part of his term, he signs a historical peace accord with Egypt. The Smitty summit at Camp David is over and Israel and Egypt have agreed to two documents taking a giant step toward achieving peace in their troubled corner of the world. And in return for peace, he gives back the whole of the Sinai Peninsula after evacuating the Jewish Israeli settlements from there. On Israel's side, it seems that Begin has agreed to negotiate the removal of Israeli

settlements from the Sinai. So Israel negotiates a way'll in for peace exactly now both Sadat and they can are left with the responsibility of selling those concessions to their own constituencies so while the bed I have a good government supported the ongoing settlement campaign. It also gave back territory that the settlers thought should not be given back at any price, at any cost, at any term, because they are part of the biblical land of Israel. And they saw that as a threat that it will happen again. That more land might be bartered away.

Yes. And so the withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula led to an outburst of violence from the settlers. Some extreme settlers wanted to signal to the Israeli government that they would cause chaos if any more land is negotiated away with the Arab countries. And so they start attacking Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. And then in June of 1980, what was later called the Jewish Underground, which was an extremist offshoot within the settler movement, attempted to blow up three prominent Palestinian mayors in the West Bank. They put bombs in the cars and severely injured two of them.

And so once these attacks happened, some senior officials at the military just failed to condemn them. What did they say? They said, this is welcome. The military commander of the West Bank when referred to the bombs that hit the lower part of the body of the bears, he said, it's a pity they did not aim higher, hinting that

he wished they died. Now, when the settlers, when the members of this group, the Jewish underground, when they hear the military commander of the area saying something like that, they understand what, you know, everybody would understand. This is an encouragement. This is not condemn, this is not enforcing the law. This is a sort of a wicked nod with a smile, with humor. Why didn't they have hired? They should have killed them. So this is a very clear sign from the people who were supposed to be enforcing the law that violence toward Palestinians is not only not bad, it might even be good.

That's right. So Ronan, in this period of the 1980s, were Israelis trying to fight back against this apathy toward Palestinian lives and just general disregard for the rule of law in the West Bank? I assume Israelis would be appalled. I don't think theoretically that you are wrong, Sabrina. I just think that they didn't know. The people in Israel, the public, they didn't know what is happening there.

It's remote. Relative remote to distance is it is real the press was almost not covering anything that happened there. What. There were people who got made aware of the situation. This impunity and they realize how horrible the situation is. So a group of law professors from both the Tel Aviv and the Jerusalem Hebrew universities wrote a letter to the attorney general of Israel. They said, you should open an investigation about Jewish terrorism and violence. And the attorney general, he was a port. He didn't know as

well. He's the attorney general of the state and he doesn't know. So he calls in his deputy for special duties, Judith Karp. And he assigned her to lead a committee that would go and thoroughly investigate the claims and concerns of those professors. When they started to investigate, they realized that the situation on the ground is much worse than described in the professor's letter. They discovered the whole system of total negligence, inability to execute efficient and just interrogation, investigation on claims of Jewish crimes. They found the police that is completely incapable of doing its job, and the military, that in spite of being in charge of the security of the region, is completely helpless in supplying

that security to the Palestinian inhabitants. So this CARP report was pretty damning. Pretty damning. And then this was so secret because, course the local and international implications of such a report are significant. But the attorney general was assured by the ministers that this will be brought to the cabinet and thoroughly discussed and there will be steps taken following that. And the long-time minister of the police invited Karp to his home to discuss the report. Now Karp was sure that he wants to hear more, maybe to congratulate her for this work.

But instead she recalls he started to attack her for what they are doing. And soon she realized that they are going to do nothing. They are going to bury the report, which at the end led Carp to resign the post as leading their team because she realized nothing is going to be done. And in retrospect, Carp says, we were naive. And so the 80s and the 90s saw a growing turmoil in the West Bank and Gaza. The settlement project continues, and there were more and more attacks from extremists

on both sides. And then in 1987, the Palestinian frustration from the continuous occupation and the settlement project explodes into something that would be known as the first intifada, the first uprising. Palestinians just had enough. And it was clear to them that with the harassment, the condoning of violence, the expansion of the settlements, it was clear that Israel was not really interested in bartering the West Bank and Gaza for reconciliation. And the Palestinians were just furious. Massive protests. Fierce massive protests, some of it deteriorates into violence, terrorism, with many thousands of young Israeli soldiers that are sent to the territories to crush the protest. And that, along with this idea of continuous support to the settlements, most Israelis

just came to feel that this is not what they want, that it just cannot go on. And this leads Yitzhak Rabin, the head of the Labor Party, the party on the left, winning a triumphant victory in 1992. Because people in Israel were seeking for a solution, they were seeking for reconciliation, and Rabin tried to do something different. Rabin was a famous military commander who devoted his whole life to the security of Israel.

But while focusing on making sure people in Israel feel safe, he also promised he would try to negotiate a sustainable peace with the Palestinians. And people thought that if anyone could do that, it was Rabin. We'll have to reach the agreement. The partner are the Palestinians in the territory. Now everybody understood that any kind of agreement with the Palestinian people or with their representative, the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, needs to have first of all an agreement to a Palestinian state. and in that Palestinian state, the vast majority or all the settlements will be taken down and the people in them should be withdrawn back into the

borders of Israel. So you're saying that Rabin's election really represented a realization among Israelis that the vision of the ultra-nationalists and the settlers was a problem and it was time to change course, negotiate, ultimately to give land back to the Palestinians. Yes. So first of all, he ordered a total freezing of all new settlements. But second, he agreed to a secret channel with the Peer Law that ended with what we know as the Oslo Peace Accords. Today the leadership of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization will sign a declaration of principles on interim Palestinian self-government. Historical agreement with the Palestinian Liberation Organization with its chief Yasser Arafat and at the end signing a roadmap that though not declared in those words, but was

the roadmap for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. And there was a moment of great hope echoed in the speeches of Isaac Rabin who said, Today we are embarking on a battle which has no dead and no wounded, no blood and no anguish. This is the only battle which is a pleasure to wage, the battle for peace. Now it's time to turn for peace. You're describing this as a moment of hope, but just for some, right? Ronen, I mean, not for everybody. For the ultranationalists, I expect they had a very different reaction to this.

Yes. From their point of view, it's a blasphemy. Of course, they understand this is the end of the whole project. So the ultranationalists, again, as in the 80s, following the withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula after the peace accord with Egypt, again, they sought to undermine this effort towards peace, which they understood would involve giving away more land. So they reacted with more violence towards the Palestinians. So they reacted with more violence towards the Palestinians. There was an escalation of harassment and attacks, and that reached a peak on the 25th

of February 1994. Baruch Goldstein, one of the most, according to Shilbet, the most dangerous activist of the ultra-right and settlers in Israel back then. Wearing IDF uniforms, carrying a Galil assault rifle, entered the cave of the patriarch, a holy place of worship for both Jews and Muslims. It was in the middle of Ramadan. It was full with local Palestinians praying. And he just stood in front of them, easily crossing all the cross checks and cross points and screening processes that should have been and were not in place by the Israeli police

and again. He was able to kill 29 of the worshipers, injuring 125 of them. In the West Bank town of Hebron, a US-born Israeli settler named Baruch Goldstein opens fire in a crowded mosque. And at the end, he was taken down by the other worshippers and killed. That shocked everybody and most of all it shocked Rabin, who gave a speech on the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament podium, where he said to those who applauded what Goldstein just

did, he said, you are not part of us. You are not part of the Jewish people. We don't have any connection with you. Trying to outcast them. But of course, it did not kill the movement or the spirit or stop the activity of the fans and followers. Maybe even was inflated by what Goldstein has done, which they saw as an act of courage, something that should have been done not just to those, but to all the Arabs.

And they just continued. What happened was that not only do the Israeli ultra-right extremists not stop this violence, they celebrate the violence and eventually wrap up the violence to a degree that no one in Israel could have even imagined. And so after the Israeli government did not allow to bury Goldstein in Hebron, in the West Bank, one of them, an extremist supporter, probably the most vocal one, he was able to erect a tomb for Goldstein in Kiryat Arba, that's a nearby settlement, with an epitaph saying that Goldstein was a saint, that he died with clean hands and with pure heart.

And this young extremist supporter of this mass shooting, he was just a teenager. He had joined the youth movement of a political group that advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel. And for many years, on the anniversary of this massacre, this young man paraded and celebrated. He danced and he sang for the saint, for his clean hands and pure heart, Goldstein. And the name of that person, back then, it meant nothing to any Israeli.

His name was Itamar Ben-Gavir. Itamar Ben-Gavir may be the most prominent figure in the ultra-right movement today and a member of Netanyahu's cabinet. Not just a member of the cabinet, but also the minister for national security in charge of the police, the person who was arrested dozens of times, indicted, and also at the end convicted in incitement to racism and in support of terrorist organization. And now he is in charge of the police. The lawless became the law. Maybe the one thing that everybody in Israel remembered was when the same Itamar Ben-Gvir in October 1995 held the ornament of a Cadillac that he said he stole from the prime minister car and said, in the same way that we could get to steal that, and we could get to Rabin's car,

we will get to Rabin himself. So he holds up the hood ornament that he apparently ripped off of Rabin's car, and he's saying if we can get this hood ornament, we can get to him. Meaning, we could kill him? That's right. And then, on November 4th, 1995, just a few weeks after Itamar Ben-Vir showed off with this ornament of the Cadillac,

the Shilbert was unable to protect Rabin's life from one assassin with a gun that in the most almost nonchalant way passed all security, pulled the gun and killed the prime minister of the Jewish state. Rabin stepped off the stage. A gunman slipped through and fired at point-blank range. Will he have the apparent assassin in custody? He's described as a law student in his 20s and as affiliated with radical Jewish settlers.

Egal Amir, the 27-year-old law student who said that God told him to kill the Prime Minister of Israel. And so we see how far the most extreme on the far right were willing to go to realize their goal, settling all the biblical land of Israel and preventing peace with the Palestinians. They were not just willing to terrorize Palestinians in the territories, they were willing to kill Palestinians, to kill Israelis, Jews, the leader of the Jewish state of Israel. And with that assassination,

Rabin's effort to stop the ultra-nationalist movement and the settlement project died as well. We'll be right back. Okay, Renan, so far you've told us about the origins of this kind of epic battle over land and dueling visions for what Israel should be, a lawful democratic country or one ruled by extremist forces and how the extremists got so brazen that they killed their own prime minister Yitzhak Rabin because he was going to give away land in exchange for a peace deal.

Yeah. So how do we go from that assassination of Rabin because he was going to give away land in exchange for a peace deal. Yeah. So how do we go from that assassination of Rabin to the present, where those same extremists, including Itamar Ben-Gavir, are central figures in the Israeli government? So after Rabin's assassination, the Oslo peace process faltered and eventually falls apart, which is, of course, exactly what the extremists wanted. The settlement project in the West Bank and Gaza continues to expand. Roads, electricity, they all continue to run to more and more settlements. In fact, in this period, the state itself was secretly funding and constructing these illegal settlements

through a network of officials in the government that intentionally obscure the state participation. Meaning like actual taxpayer-funded resources are secretly going into developing illegal settlements in the West Bank. Yes, that's right. And of course, as we've seen in the past, like with the first Intifada, the first uprising, when it's clear to the Palestinians that Israel isn't committed to preventing illegal settlements and isn't really working towards giving Palestinians an independent state, it creates frustration. And that frustration is then very easily exploited by Palestinian extremists like Hamas.

They try to inflame the situation, and again, they succeed. Only this time, it was later called the second Intifada. The second Intifada, the second uprising erupted on the 29th of September 2000 with a total loss of control by the Israeli military. One of the worst suicide bombing jet tonight at a resort hotel in northern Israel. And a wave of suicide bombers that seems to be endless from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And of course Israel responds with force. Tonight Israel's top leaders are meeting to decide how to retaliate. At government sources there will be a harsh response.

The Israeli public already demanding sharp, quick, hard retaliation against the Palestinians. And at the end of five years of uprising and attacks, around 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians were killed. And after that, the Israeli population largely moved politically to the right. The appetite for working with Palestinians towards peace was essentially gone, and the desire for a heavy hand against the Palestinians won the day. It seems almost certain that the Israelis will elect a controversial and conservative Ariel Sharon, the former general who believes that Israel has already given the Palestinians

too much in the peace talks. In 2001, they elected Ariel Sharon as prime minister. Nicknamed the bulldozer for his program to clear land on the West Bank to settle Israelis. And Sharon has been known for years for his avid support of the settlement project. A veteran of all Israel's wars with a notorious reputation for brutality with Arabs. And also his harsh treatment of the Palestinians during his time in the military, during his time as Minister of Defense.

Sharon is seen as a tough leader who can stop the violence. So unlike the first Intifada where Israelis reacted by electing someone who would aim for peace, this time the Israelis elected a right-wing leader who they thought would crush the uprising with force. Yep. But, surprise again. Partly because of the United States was using its enormous leverage to push very hard for a two-state solution. Sharon soon realized that he needs to do a total political reversal. That the only way to sustain the Jewish project of Israel to continue to be in good standing in the world, there is no other alternative but to go to a political solution with the

Palestinians, to go for a two-state solution. And that he cannot do without disassembling the illegal settlements. So basically, Sharon comes to a similar conclusion as Rabin, even though they're on totally different sides of the political spectrum and started with totally different attitudes about the settlement project. They both end up at the conclusion that the only way to achieve security for Israel is to negotiate with the Palestinians, which means giving back land in exchange for peace. Yes, and so he did a few things. The most important of which was to declare the

disengagement, pulling out of Gaza and disassembling some of the settlements in the West Bank, which you know was not very popular with its own base and very unpopular with the Jewish ultra-nationalists. We don't want to leave. This is ours. And when something is right, this is our house, and we're not going to give it up. The Nazis did this. I'm ashamed. I could cry that this happened. Jews don't deport Jews.

There was even an incident where a group of extreme right-wingers, settlers, attempted to blow up a major Israeli highway, all to prevent the withdrawal from Gaza. Now, that plot was foiled, but it shows how much the extremists hated this move by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a guy who used to be the greatest champion of the settlement project, but now was trying to pull out of Gaza. Despite their efforts, however, the pullout eventually does happen in 2005. So Ariel Sharon successfully pulls out of Gaza, but what happened with his parallel effort

to pull out of the West Bank? So he ordered the disassemblement of settlements, but somehow this coffee didn't get down the machine. The orders vaporized through the chain of command and nothing happened. Why? What went wrong? The secret aid given to the illegal settlement project was so absorbed into the administration because the government services were so infiltrated by sympathizers to the settlements,

it would have taken a long time to bypass the obstacles that were put in order to prevent the disassembly of the settlements. And so, Prime Minister Sharon was giving orders, trying to overcome the resistance inside the administration. But before enough robust effort could be put in place in January 2006, Prime Minister Sharon suffered a stroke. He went into a coma from which he never recovered. He ran out of time to really dismantle the government network that had been supporting the settlers there.

Yes, but the extremists, what they deducted from this affair was that there is a viable threat for yet more withdrawals, more evacuations, more negotiation for peace with the Palestinians. Something they have to prevent. Like if Sharon, a champion of the settlement movement, was willing to pull out of Gaza and try to withdraw from the West Bank, then any leader might try it again. Exactly. One of their chief ideologists told me years later, he said their conclusion was that as long as the state has all those institutions, the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Justice,

the military, there will always be a threat for yet another evacuation, maybe a total evacuation of the whole of the West Bank, which they see as their own. And so they need to make yet a step further, not just to erect more settlements, but to actually take apart or control those institutions. They had to come to the inside. They have to come to the inside to infiltrate the administration that they hate so much, meaning they have to become politicians. And so some of these extremists decide to come out of the shadows. They get proper haircuts, put on a suit. And Sabrina, you remember Itamar Ben-Gvir?

Of course. The guy who celebrated the mass murder of Palestinians in Hebron, who stole the hood ornament from Rabin's car just before his assassination. So that Ben-Gur, he goes to law school and he became the leader of, at that time, a very small far-right extremist political party called Otsma Yehudit, or Jewish power. Just by the name you can understand the nature. And another extremist, a settler named Betzalel Smotrich, he started

building up his political career as well. Do you remember the plot to blow up the highway when Sharon was pulling out of Gaza? So there was substantial evidence that that Smotrich was part of that plot, though. He was never prosecuted Like Ben Gver, he goes to become a more public-facing activist for racist anti-arab policies and he becomes involved in yet another very small far-right Israeli party called the religious Zionist party So both these guys smotrich and Ben Gver, they're still ideologically on the far right, but now they're also professional politicians who today are both in very powerful positions

in the Netanyahu government. Well, how did that happen exactly? How did they go from the extreme fringe to the center of power? Well, it took a while. Initially, Netanyahu shunned the hard-right ultra-nationalists, and he famously wouldn't share the stage with them. But fast forward to 2019, Netanyahu. This is when general has indicted the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on… This is when he gets indicted on corruption charges.

Netanyahu is accused of doling out favors to media tycoons in exchange for flattering news coverage and hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts. And that leads to a situation ending with none of the central or the left-wing parties agreeing to sit in his coalition. They said, you, Netanyahu, you cannot continue because you are on trial for corruption and bribery and other charges. You cannot be the prime minister. So eventually he does lose the prime ministership in 2021.

Long time Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to be pushed out of office in just hours. But Netanyahu, who never lost hope to come back again, he wants to regain his post as prime minister. Benjamin Netanyahu, in order to form a governing coalition, has now aligned himself with nationalist and orthodox parties. And Netanyahu understood that the only way he could get enough support to become prime minister again is to partner up with the very small ultra-right parties and their leaders, say Ben-Gurion and Smodrich,

because they are some of the only politicians who would have anything to do with him anymore. Breaking news in the Middle East as well. Benjamin Netanyahu will become prime minister of Israel once again. His return is being directly tied to the rise of his allies, Israel's extreme right. This is being described as Israel's most far right government since the country was established back in 1948. So the bottom line is that people who have been actively supported of terrorism or people who have advocated for the most extreme racist idea, who just years before he, Netanyahu, wouldn't be seen with, now he partners with them. Now Netanyahu can rise again to be the Prime Minister,

but only thanks to the support of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Betzalov Smotrich, who are now key pillars of his coalition. In return for their support, Netanyahu gives them high regular position in his cabinet because for Netanyahu, worse than aligning with the violent extremists would be for himself to lose power. So Ben-Gvir is the minister of national security and Smotrich is both the minister of finance, so controlling the budget of the country, and a minister at the Ministry of Defense, controlling all Israeli state civilian activities in the West Bank. So because it's the only way to get back into power, Netanyahu goes all the way with the

extremists, giving them control over the territories they've spent their lives trying to claim. Yes, that's right. Okay, so how does the rise of the right play out on the ground in the West Bank after leaders like Ben Gavir and Smotrich move into those powerful positions in the government? I think the best example was in February, 2023, just two months after the new government was sworn in. Two settlers, two brothers, sat in a car going through Hawara, it's a small town in the West Bank,

and many settlers and Palestinians are going through every day. The terrorists from Hamas approached their car, pulled a gun, and murdered them. And shortly afterwards, the social media of the ultra-right was swamped with calls for revenge. One of the leaders of one of the regional councils of the settlers said that they should go and wipe out Hawara. That's the name of that village. And Smotrich, a minister at the Ministry of Defense, when asked, he said, yes, I think we should wipe out Hawara.

Because I think the Hawara village needs to be legalized. I think the State of Israel needs to do it. And just to make sure that he's understood, he said, but I think the state should do that. We should not leave it to private, individual hands. And of course, after he was threatened not to be allowed to the US, he said, I was not understood, but of course it's all recorded.

But the main thing is that people in the West Bank settlers, they got it. 400 of them that night went and attacked Hawara and burned down houses and cars and animals heard of those villages and one Palestinian, Same when he spoke with us, he called it a pogrom. He chose a word, obviously with special significance to Israel, special significance to Jews, because of course that's the word used to describe what happened to Jews attacked in Eastern Europe. And the Shin Bet and the police and the military, though they monitored the social media, though it was clear that it's going to happen.

Sabria, you and I could get the warning because it's just there on social media. They don't even bother. They lost social media. They don't even bother. They lost the shame. They don't even bother to hide this. But in spite of all of that, this was still not prevented. And I arrived to Havar a few hours later. It was still burning. And I started to look at that case.

So 400 settlers attacking a village. But in spite of that being a terrorist attack, nobody was charged for what happened. The military said, we are not sure that he died of shooting or another health issue. I had the picture of his body in the hospital where he died and he had clear signs of a bullet, big bullet here in the chest. I sent her the idea of spokesperson the picture and said, yes, he died of a health issue called a bullet. It was clear how he died. And then I learned that the police has a GoPro video taken by a camera on the chest of one of the policemen of a settler shooting. And they did not even arrest that settler. It's unbelievable.

A person dies. They have a GoPro of at least suspected person to shoot him. It's just, I would say, a total nonchalant to human lives. So they just stopped enforcing the law when it comes to settlers in the West Bank? Exactly. We got hold of a secret document that shows that Smotry, since he took charge of the civil administration in the West Bank, stopped enforcing the law on illegal settlements, illegal roads, illegal infrastructure for the settlements, everything. It was brought to an

almost total freeze after October 7th, while the whole of Israel, the whole world were looking at Gaza. And then there is another yet secret letter that shows that the police almost completely stopped answering calls from Palestinians to come to help them when they are attacked by extreme settlers, following orders from the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Ghavir. So after October 7th, literally a Palestinian calls the police, says their house is on fire, no response, on the direct orders of Ben-Ghavir. Yes.

That's what the military, the Shin Bet shit better saying top classified documents and on top of that the economy the west bank is just collapsing. What's up smotrich in his first hat as the minister of finance is intentionally hobbling the economy of the palestinians who live in the west bank. Palestinians who live in the West Bank. So one thing he does is not giving the Palestinians the tax revenues that Israel collects for them, basically their money, for goods that are being imported through the airports and the seaports of Israel. This is something like 70% of the overall Palestinian budget. And as if the economic situation in the West Bank was not horrible enough, the 150,000 Palestinians that had the permit to go to Israel to work and bring a lot of money back home, they cannot go back because Minister Smotrich, after the war, forbids them.

And so they don't bring back the money that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians depend on. And then this summer, Ben-Gvir, so the Minister of National Security, visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and led public prayer on camera. Now that may not seem like a huge provocation to do, but in fact it is to Muslims. This is one of the most holiest sites in the world. And the current agreement is that Jews are forbidden to pray in this place. And so doing that on the mountain is a huge provocation, and everybody understands that.

Certainly Ben-V understand that. He knows that this could incite a war all on its own. In the past, so much blood has been shed over the years for such provocations. What you're describing Ronan, the destruction of Palestinian villages, violence by extreme settlers, deliberate provocations by leaders themselves. This all sounds like it's designed to cause an explosion. Exactly. So just this past August, a bomb blast in Tel Aviv late on Sunday has been confirmed as a terrorist attack.

That's a court. The Palestinian blew himself up in central Tel Aviv. The man carrying the bomb, which exploded near a synagogue, was killed and a passerby was injured. This was the first suicide bombing inside Israel in the almost last decade. And then in late August, partially in reaction to this suicide bomber.

The Israeli military says it launched a large counter-terror operation overnight in two refugee camps. The Israeli army did the 10-day raid in Jenin, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. It was one of the most extensive and deadly raids in the West Bank in years. The Israeli army said it killed 14 militants and detained 30 others who were part of a militant group or planning attacks of different kinds. But of course, there was also extensive other damage done.

People are describing the destruction left by the Israeli military here as an earthquake. Everything here is ripped up. Innocent civilians were killed, of course, quite a lot of physical destruction in the city. And so the cycle of violence begins once again. Ronan, do you think this is the beginning of the Third Intifada? It's a very very good question it's not the question just that you Sabrina and I asking. Asking themselves and their colleagues that question with great concern. more and more signs indicating a third Intifada is coming. But unlike in other times of crisis that occurred since the end of the second Intifada two decades

ago, that every time these signs were picked up, people were very concerned, and the Israeli administration, government, defense establishment, ministers, cabinet, all rallied in order to try to lower the flame, to do something to stop the possible explosion. Now, while the defense establishment is alerting, is telling everybody, listen, we are on the brink, there are government officials, cabinet ministers, that are looking at the same signs, but they're not concerned, they're happy. They are looking for an intifada, for explosion, for havoc. So Sabrina, to answer your question, I don't know, but it seems reasonable that we'd look back at the last couple of months

and say, yes, that was the beginning of a third Intifada. So when you said at the beginning of our conversation, Ronen, that this escalation is a result of the decades-long rise of the extreme right, this is what you meant. The people who have always said that they want to control all of the land are now in power and willing to plunge the country into more and more violence to get it. Exactly. And no one seems willing or able to stop them. Well, so there was a letter from the head of the Shin Bet, which was sent in the last

few weeks to Benjamin Netanyahu and other top government officials, a letter I wish I saw and was later also reported in the Israeli media. Sabrina, this was one of the most severe letters I have ever read coming from the ranks of the intelligence community in Israel. He wrote that the Jewish terrorism that we are seeing in the West Bank these days is a, quote, a great stain on Judaism and on all of us, that it will cause, quote, global delegitimization even among our best friends, meaning our allies around the world. And also that this settler violence poses a serious security threat for all of Israel and that going in this direction, so the escalation of Jewish terrorism, will, quote, lead to

much bloodshed and will change beyond recognition the face of Israel as we know and sacrifice for it over the years. So Netanyahu and other officials should understand how bad things are, how dire the situation is. But will anything change if the power lies in the alliance with people like Ben-Gurvier and Smotrich? Probably not. And people in Israel, so Israeli citizens, who didn't know, who didn't want to know

what's happening over there behind the fence, are all shocked. But if they would just look behind the fence, then nothing of all of that should have been a surprise. So I think what we have learned is almost the obvious, but now it's so clear that when forgive for small offenses of criminal activity, of violence, looting and intimidating against Palestinians. When you give full impunity to more and more severe violence and terrorism against Palestinians, you end with more violence more impunity and You end with people who support or took part of it in the coalition The lawless became the law

And I think that what Mark Masetti and Nathan Odenheimer and myself Attempted to do in this report was to do something very simple, to put a mirror in front of a reality that nobody wanted to look at. And I hope that when bringing some of that knowledge, when showing the world, but also the Israeli public, what is happening behind that fence, the impunity, the total disregard of the law. If this is not stopped, then the whole of the Israeli project is under great, great jeopardy. And it will sentence this region to live on its sword for many, many, many years. Hernan, thank you.

Thank you, Sabrina. We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. In Lebanon on Tuesday, hundreds of pagers belonging to members of Hezbollah exploded simultaneously in a highly coordinated attack that killed at least 11 people and injured more than 2,800. Three of the 11 people killed were civilians, two children, and a first aid worker. Hospitals were inundated with the injured,

who had wounds on their faces, hands, and stomachs. American and other officials said Israel was responsible for the attack and had executed it by hiding small amounts of explosive material in each pager before the devices reached Lebanon on their way from Taiwan, where they were made. Hezbollah operatives have long used pagers instead of phones to make it harder for their messages to be intercepted. The practice became more widespread after the October 7 attacks, when Hezbollah began firing into Israeli territory in solidarity with its ally Hamas.

Today's episode was produced by Ricky Nowetzki and Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Paige Cowitt with help from Ben Calhoun. Fact Checked by Susan Lee contains original music by Alicia Be'itu, Dan Powell, Diane Wong, Marian Lozano, and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Special thanks to Mark Mazzetti, Nattan Odenheimer, Luke Mitchell, Yara Bayoumi, Paula Schumann, Maddy Masiello, and Nick

Pittman. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansberg of Wonderly. That's it for the Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.