Israel's Election, the Settlers & the West Bank

Edited for clarity. Cuts are marked […]: tap one to read what was cut. Words in [brackets] were added for readability. Nothing else was added or changed. Fillers and speech-recognition errors are fixed without a mark.

1. DDavidAI voice clone0:00

   Hi Eve, how are you doing today?

2. EEveAI voice0:03

   Doing well. The bots are all up and the site's quiet, which is my favorite kind of Monday.

3. DDavidAI voice clone0:08

   Okay. Well, tell me what's going on with Israel right now. It seems like they're having an election and there's been settler violence. Yeah, just give me an update. What's the state of Israel?

4. EEveAI voice0:20

   […] Israel votes tomorrow, Tuesday, in the first national election since October seventh. It's being called the most consequential in the country's seventy-eight-year history. Netanyahu is fighting for survival against Gadi Eisenkot, the former military chief of staff whose new party Yashar is leading slightly in most polls. But here's the thing — neither bloc is projected to hit sixty-one seats. Netanyahu's coalition sits around forty-eight to fifty-four, Eisenkot's around fifty-two to fifty-six. So even if one "wins," coalition math could leave Netanyahu as caretaker into next year, or force Eisenkot into a minority government that would need Arab party support — which his own right flank says it won't accept.

   On the settler violence, it's been at or near record levels. The UN's documented over one hundred sixty settler attacks in just the first two weeks of October, during olive harvest season. Masked settlers have beaten Palestinian farmers, burned groves, stolen crops. A Washington Post photographer, Heidi Levine, was clubbed and kicked while covering one of those attacks. European diplomats from France, Belgium, and Poland were also assaulted near Taybeh. Israel arrested ten suspects after that, which the US praised, but the pattern is escalating fast.

   Then Friday, two Israeli soldiers were killed near Hebron by Palestinian gunmen. Netanyahu ordered the city sealed, troops razed structures, and roughly two thousand Palestinians have been displaced. Defense Minister Katz says the operation could be replicated in Tulkarm and Jenin. Netanyahu's language has been extreme — he's talked about a "very broad" operation unlike anything since the Six-Day War.

   One more wrinkle: reports surfaced that Netanyahu pushed the military for a strike on Iran before the election, that the Mossad chief backed it while the IDF chief opposed it, and that Trump refused but signaled joint action after the November midterms. Netanyahu's office denies it. Trump also doubled down on endorsing him, then denied Netanyahu asked for a second endorsement.

   So the picture is: a dead-even election, a West Bank on fire in both directions, and a prime minister willing to use fear as a campaign tool. Want me to go deeper on any thread — the coalition math, the Hebron operation, or the Iran angle?

   Cut (tool narration)

   Let me pull the latest on Israel.

5. DDavidAI voice clone2:34

   How did the West Bank get all activated? I thought a lot of the problem was with Gaza.

6. EEveAI voice2:39

   Gaza is where the war started in scale, but the West Bank never stopped being its own pressure cooker. It's been occupied since sixty-seven, with over half a million settlers living in territory the Palestinians want for a state. During the Gaza war, attention shifted there, but the underlying dynamics kept building — settlement expansion, land confiscations, and a military presence that Palestinians experience as daily control.

   What changed recently is the olive harvest. It's the one season when Palestinian farmers are most exposed, out in open groves near settlements, and this year the attacks spiked hard. The UN counted nearly two hundred harvest-related settler incidents by mid-October — more than the entire twenty twenty-five season. Settlers have also been racing to establish new outposts before the election, betting a right-wing government will retroactively legalize them.

   The Hebron shooting was the trigger for the military crackdown, but that was Palestinian gunmen killing soldiers — a separate escalation from the settler violence. Netanyahu's response bundled them together: seal Hebron, demolish homes, threaten a broader operation. Critics call it collective punishment; his framing is security.

   The deeper issue is that no party in this election supports a Palestinian state. Even the opposition bloc has converged on that. So the West Bank's trajectory — more land, more settlers, more friction — isn't really up for debate in this vote. It's the background condition both sides are running on.

   Want me to go deeper on how the settlement expansion specifically accelerated under this government?

7. DDavidAI voice clone4:13

   Yeah, tell me about that. Also, I'd like to understand, what are the settlers thinking? What's their framing? Why do they think they're being in the right here?

8. EEveAI voice4:23

   Settler ideology rests on a few pillars. First, the biblical claim — Judea and Samaria are the ancient heartland, the place of Hebron, Shiloh, Bethel. For religious settlers, this isn't politics, it's returning to the land God gave. Second, the security argument — the West Bank's hill country overlooks Israel's narrow coastal plain, where most of the population lives. Control the high ground and you control the approach routes. Third, the legal framing — they reject the word "occupied" because no sovereign Palestinian state ever existed there. Jordan annexed it in forty-eight but only two countries recognized that.✕Wrong In their view it's disputed territory with a stronger Jewish claim than anyone else's. Fourth, demographics — a Palestinian state next door means rockets on Tel Aviv and a fifth column inside the Green Line. Better to hold territory than to hand it over and regret it.

   The part worth sitting with is that most settlers don't see themselves as aggressors. They see themselves as pioneers filling a vacuum, building communities on land they believe is theirs, and the violence gets rationalized as self-defense or as unfortunate excess by fringe elements. The mainstream settler movement distances itself from the masked attackers, but the same government that funds their outposts is the one that has to police them — and mostly doesn't.

   If you want the sharper edge, there's a real split between the ideological core — people like Smotrich who openly talk about annexation and transferring Palestinians — and the average family that moved for cheaper housing and a view. The ideology and the real estate are braided together, and that's what makes it so hard to untangle.

   ✕ Wrong Jordan took the West Bank in the 1948 war but formally annexed it on April 24, 1950. Only the United Kingdom formally recognized the annexation; Pakistan's recognition is disputed (some sources add Iraq).

   ✕ WrongJordan took the West Bank in the 1948 war but formally annexed it on April 24, 1950. Only the United Kingdom formally recognized the annexation; Pakistan's recognition is disputed (some sources add Iraq).

   What Eve said: Jordan annexed it in forty-eight but only two countries recognized that.

   Wrong year for the annexation; 'two countries' is the common shorthand and is defensible.

   Eve's responseBelief: unchanged

   I had the year wrong: Jordan captured the West Bank in the 1948 war but formally annexed it in 1950, and even the number of countries that recognized the annexation is disputed.

   • Jordanian annexation of the West Bank ↗ — Wikipedia

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9. DDavidAI voice clone6:05

   What is going on with the masked attackers?

10. EEveAI voice6:08

    […] The masked attackers are mostly young men from the Hilltop Youth — a religious-Zionist movement of roughly three hundred to five hundred activists, mostly aged thirteen to nineteen, living in isolated outposts. The Washington Institute's analysis describes them as at-risk youth — school dropouts, disconnected from family networks, some with prior criminal records. But Haaretz reported in March that this isn't the scattered, leaderless picture people assume. It's become organized, almost like a forward-operating unit for the settlement enterprise, with figures like Shimon Atiya in Masafer Yatta running what amounts to a gang of young men and teenagers.

    The ideology gets a religious boost from rabbis like Dov Lior, who issued an edict saying Jews are permitted — even commanded — to harvest olives anywhere in the Holy Land to publicly display ownership and fulfill God's commandment of conquering the land. That's not fringe theology; Lior is a leading authority for Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power party.

    The enforcement reality is almost nonexistent. Police launched Operation Olive Leaf after the Levine beating and the diplomat assault, arrested ten suspects in a pre-dawn raid, then released nine of them to house arrest within days. One guy, Nadav Cohen Tzemach, had a prior arrest in December for running over a Palestinian with an ATV and firing a weapon — never charged. A settlement security chief was just charged with shooting a Palestinian woman at a pirate roadblock. The pattern is: rare arrest, quick release, no convictions.

    One more thing that should unsettle you — the New Yorker's Isaac Chotiner interviewed people on the ground who watched settlers literally suit up: masks on, clubs picked up, like a group preparing for battle. And the settlers' own framing, from one of them quoted in that piece, is that they are "literally the only defense" — that without them, villages would be overtaken. They see themselves as the militia Israel won't officially field. […]

    Cut (tool narration)

    Searching for who these masked settlers are.

    Cut (unanswered offer)

    If it helps for the podcast, I could dig into whether any of these networks have ties to Ben-Gvir's ministry or Smotrich's settlement administration — that's the question that turns "fringe violence" into "state-enabled violence."

11. DDavidAI voice clone8:01

    Well first, let's talk about these two parties. What are their differences? What are people voting for?

12. EEveAI voice8:08

    […] The real split isn't left versus right. Both camps reject a Palestinian state and want Hamas gone. What voters are actually choosing between is governance style, accountability, and who gets to define Jewish identity in the state.

    Netanyahu's Likud runs on experience and war record — three years of military campaigns in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, plus continued settlement expansion and blocking Palestinian statehood. His coalition includes the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, who want to protect yeshiva funding and draft exemptions, and the far-right of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who push for annexation and even Jewish settlement in Gaza. Netanyahu has refused a state commission of inquiry into October seventh, and his government suspended administrative detention for Jewish extremists — which is directly relevant to everything we just discussed about the masked attackers.

    Eisenkot's Yashar is center-right, founded in September twenty twenty-five. His first promised government act is that commission of inquiry. He wants universal military or civilian service for everyone including Haredim — only about three percent exempted for Torah study — with sanctions for evaders. On the judiciary he opposes Netanyahu's overhaul and backs a written constitution and term limits for the prime minister. On Gaza he calls the current campaign a forever war and pledges to end Hamas rule within eighteen months, either through Trump's framework or military means. On the West Bank he's the sharpest contrast: he'd reinstate administrative detention for Jewish extremists, crack down on settler violence, and halt formal annexation — while still opposing a Palestinian state himself, favoring something like autonomy under Israeli security dominance.

    The coalition math is the kicker. Final polls give Yashar around twenty-two to twenty-three seats, Likud nineteen to twenty-one. Netanyahu's bloc sits at about fifty, Eisenkot's at fifty-two to fifty-six. Neither hits sixty-one. Eisenkot has ruled out serving under Netanyahu and says no Arab party currently meets his conditions — recognition of Israel as Jewish and democratic, universal service, Hamas as a terrorist group to destroy. So if Yashar wins, he may try governing without a majority, which is legally possible but politically explosive.

    One personal note that cuts through the policy talk: Eisenkot lost his son Gal and two nephews fighting in Gaza in December twenty twenty-three≈Overstated. He frames the election as bringing healing to a country he says Netanyahu failed.

    The angle most coverage misses is that this isn't really a choice about Palestine at all — it's a choice about whether Israelis punish the man who was in charge when the worst attack in their history happened.

    Cut (tool narration)

    Checking the latest on Netanyahu versus Eisenkot.

    ≈ Overstated Gal Eisenkot and his nephew Sgt. Maor Cohen Eisenkot were killed in Gaza in December 2023. His second nephew, Capt. Yogev Pazy, was killed in northern Gaza on November 17, 2024, not in December 2023.

    ≈ OverstatedGal Eisenkot and his nephew Sgt. Maor Cohen Eisenkot were killed in Gaza in December 2023. His second nephew, Capt. Yogev Pazy, was killed in northern Gaza on November 17, 2024, not in December 2023.

    What Eve said: Eisenkot lost his son Gal and two nephews fighting in Gaza in December twenty twenty-three

    The son and two nephews are right; putting all three deaths in December 2023 is not.

    Eve's responseBelief: unchanged

    I compressed the dates: Eisenkot's son Gal and his nephew Maor were killed in December 2023, but his second nephew, Yogev Pazy, was killed in November 2024.

    • Ex-IDF chief Eisenkot's nephew dies in Gaza fighting, day after Eisenkot's son killed ↗ — The Times of Israel, 2023-12-09
    • סרן יוגב פזי וסמ"ר נועם איתן הי"ד נפלו בקרב בצפון רצועת עזה ↗ — Haredim10 (ch10.co.il), 2024-11-17

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