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.

Robert Clark explains why the resumption of hostilities is both just and necessary:

These latest Israeli strikes come after weeks of consistent Palestinian provocation; they have repeatedly broken the terms of the cease-fire which they claimed they were so desperate for. There have been numerous [unsuccessful] bus bombings near Tel Aviv and Palestinian-instigated clashes in the West Bank. Fifty-nine Israeli hostages are still held in captivity.

In fact, Hamas and their Palestinian supporters . . . have always known that they can sit back, parade dead Israeli hostages live on social media, and receive hundreds of their own convicted terrorists and murderers back in return. They believed they could get away with the October 7 pogrom.

One hopes Hamas’s leaders will get the message. Meanwhile, many inside and outside Israel seem to believe that, by resuming the fighting, Jerusalem has given up on rescuing the remaining hostages. But, writes Ron Ben-Yishai, this assertion misunderstands the goals of the present campaign. “Experience within the IDF and Israeli intelligence,” Ben-Yishai writes, “has shown that such pressure is the most effective way to push Hamas toward flexibility.” He outlines two other aims:

The second objective was to signal to Hamas that Israel is not only targeting its military wing—the terror army that was the focus of previous phases of the war up until the last cease-fire—but also its governance structure. This was demonstrated by the targeted elimination of five senior officials from Hamas’s political and civilian administration. . . . The strikes also served as a message to mediators, particularly Egypt, that Israel opposes Hamas remaining in any governing or military capacity in post-war Gaza.

The third objective was to create intense military pressure, coordinated with the U.S., on all remaining elements of the Shiite “axis of resistance,” including Yemen’s Houthis, Hamas, and Iran.