In the past few weeks, there have been numerous reports in Western media of a wave of “settler violence” committed against Palestinians in the West Bank. The phenomenon has led to condemnations from the French and U.S. governments, reports from the UN and various hostile NGOs, and a casual determination by the Guardian—a widely read and viciously anti-Israel publication—that what is happening amounts to “ethnic cleansing.” But the facts paint a very different picture. David M. Weinberg explains, drawing on statistics compiled by the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency:

Overall, the level of violence in 2023 is about the same as that of 2022, totaling about 1,000 incidences of violence of all types over the course of the full year. “Violence” in this context means many different things, from verbal altercations and rock throwing (what the Shin Bet calls “frictions” or “harassment”), to spray-painting of anti-Arab slogans and other undercover vandalism including agricultural vandalism (“price-tag activities”), to firebombing of homes or mosques (which are classified as outright “terrorist strikes”).

In fact, the more serious type of incidents dropped by 50 percent as compared to last year (although the handful of incidents that did take place this year were of a more violent nature), and there were zero incidents of “terrorist strikes” over the past 60 days. There is no evidence whatsoever of the wild accusation [by the Israel-based human-rights group B’Tselem] that “600 Palestinians from thirteen communities were forced to abandon their homes” due to fear of settler attacks.

It is unfortunately true that altercations and aggressions by settlers in 2022 (again, not 2023) rose sharply over those in 2020 and 2021. . . . This is unacceptable, and I hold no wellsprings of sympathy for the hilltop wild men involved. Israel must aggressively combat this lawlessness while acting even more aggressively against exponentially greater and more deadly Palestinian terrorism. But has there been an enormous, out-of-control surge in settler violence recently? No.

If there is to be peace, Palestinians will have to unlearn the hatred of Israel they have imbibed during nearly two decades of Hamas rule. This will be a difficult task, but Cole Aronson argues, drawing on the experiences of World War II, that Israel has already gotten off to a strong start:

The population’s compliance can . . . be won by a new regime that satisfies its immediate material needs, even if that new regime is sponsored by a government until recently at war with the population’s former regime. Axis civilians were made needy through bombing. Peaceful compliance with the Allies became a good alternative to supporting violent resistance to the Allies.

Israel’s current campaign makes a moderate Gaza more likely, not less. Destroying Hamas not only deprives Islamists of the ability to rule—it proves the futility of armed resistance to Israel, a condition for peace. The destruction of buildings not only deprives Hamas of its hideouts. It also gives ordinary Palestinians strong reasons to shun groups planning to replicate Hamas’s behavior.