Tag: settlers

Are American attitudes towards Israel changing?


Evidence that young Americans attitudes to Israel are changing

August 2026

Over the past few days (12th & 13th August) there have been a number of reports on BBC radio and TV and on Channel 4 concerning the latest violent actions by settlers in the village of Qusra on the West Bank. Palestinian families have been attacked by large groups of settlers and some have been besieged in their homes. The Israeli army is on the scene but is unable or unwilling to do more than make ineffectual efforts to curb the violence. There is footage of homes being trashed by the settlers.

In one way, this is not unusual. Settler violence against Palestinians has been a feature of the past few years with the IDF and Israel police doing nothing to stop it. But something changed with this attack. Firstly, it has received extensive coverage as noted with packages of 10 or 15 minutes devoted to the violence. More significantly, Mike Huckabee described the actions as ‘a horrific act of terror’ and those perpetrators as ‘Israeli terrorists’. Huckabee is the US Ambassador and a staunch supporter of Israel. The question is therefore: is there a change in the US attitude to Israel? Will the carte blanche support continue?

Changing American attitudes

The Pew Research Center has produced evidence which seems to record a shift in opinion. They and other commentators suggest that 60% of Americans have a less favourable view of Israel now compared with previously. Among young people especially, there are strong negative views about Netanyahu. There is a divide in the opinion with the young having negative views and older people maintaining their loyalty.

The Institute for Global Affairs suggest that more Americans are seeing Israel as a liability. Many want the flow of arms to be reduced or constrained. American help for Israel has been open ended and has amounted to around $300bn to date. Increasingly, they don’t see Israel as ‘worth a war’.

For UK people, a major factor has been the destruction and killings which have taken place in Gaza. For Americans, it has been Iran and the feeling that the US was embroiled in an expensive project at the behest of Israel. Violence on the West Bank has not gone down well. Americans are seeing the effects in the price of gas (petrol) and other commodities because of the blockade of the Straight of Hormuz. There is a view that Israel is no longer seen as a ‘pioneer democracy’ but more of an ‘oppressive state’.

It is claimed that that the powerful AIPAC organisation – one of the most powerful in the States – has a ‘stranglehold’ over Congress. They have significant contacts and are known to give support to politicians early in their careers. As in the UK, members are taken on carefully curated tours of Israel. They spent $100m to try and influence recent elections.

Problems

Despite the spending and efforts to control the debate and neutralise critics, Americans can see the results on their screens which no amount of sanitising can hide. In the Senate the numbers of Senators calling for restrictions on arms being sent to Israel is increasing.

The biggest group of supporters is from American Evangelicals who see that part of the world in Biblical terms. They see it also in terms of the second coming. They are a key part of the electorate and are very influential.

A problem however with pointing at AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is that it casts Israel, and more particularly Jews, as ‘having control’, a sensitive issue. This simply adds to the anti-Semitic claims made by Israel about any or all people who criticise them. It has an effect on critics.

Is American opinion going to change and will that bring about a re-calibration of their support to Israel? Some observers think it is a while off yet. Although younger Americans are no longer uncritical supporters, their influence is not yet great but it is growing. That Mike Huckabee spoke out in such terms is significant, not just the words themselves but that he felt able to utter them. All in all, the Israeli government is likely to be concerned at the changing mood towards them.

We must hope that a change will happen for the sake of the thousands who suffer in Gaza and the instability in Lebanon. The ceaseless violence will not ultimately help Israel. To cede control to thugs going out and terrorising Palestinians while your army and police stand by is no way for a civilised state to behave. The settlers know they have support for their actions from the highest level of government.

Sources: Channel 4 News (and a podcast); Pew Research Center; Al Jazeera; BBC; Christian Science Monitor; Institute for Global Affairs; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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UN rapporteur sanctioned by the US


The UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese sanctioned and subject to death threats

April 2026

Francesca Albanese is the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories since 1967. She has documented the extreme violence meted out on the Palestinians by Israel settlers and the IDF and for her pains has been sanctioned by the US President Donald Trump as a ‘specially designated national’. She is the first UN to have received this designation which puts her alongside drug traffickers and dictators. This has had serious consequences for her including the seizure of her Washington apartment and not being able to use a credit card anywhere in the world because they are all processed by American firms. There was considerable lobbying for this to happen.

She has received this treatment because of her reporting on the extreme violence used against Palestinians by Israel and by calling their behaviour genocide.

We are currently witnessing the invasion of southern Lebanon and the demolition of many villages.

In the West Bank, settler violence in 2026 so far, has displaced more Palestinians than in the whole of 2025. Around 1,000 have been killed since 2023 a quarter of whom were children. This is part of a pattern of violent displacement, demolition, evictions and crippling movement and access restrictions. The UN reports that ‘Israeli authorities directed, participated in or enabled settler violence’.

Albanese was interviewed recently in a Guardian piece and expands on her role and the politicians around the world who have been complicit in the violence. She has little time for Sir Keir Starmer and the aid and cover he has given Israel describing him as a ‘monster’ for arguing in 2023 that Israel ‘has the right’ to cut off electricity and gas to Gaza. “You’re not a human rights person at all” she says “if you say such a monstrosity. And the university who gave you your law degree should take it away from you.” [In the subsequent furore Sir Keir claimed he was “questioned by members” and he “made it clear it is not and has never been my view that Israel had the right to cut off water, food, fuel or medicines. International law must be followed.”]

Exceptionally ruthless physical and psychological abuse

This March, the UN published its latest report on the treatment and torture of hundreds of Palestinians and an extract says:

“In custody, Palestinian captives have been subjected to exceptionally ruthless physical and psychological abuse, on a scale and with an intensity without precedent in the history of Palestine/Israel. Brutal beatings, sexual violence, rape, lethal mistreatment, starvation and the systematic deprivation of the most basic human conditions have inflicted profound and lasting scars on the bodies and minds of tens of thousands of Palestinians and their loved ones. These practices demonstrate that the detention system of Israel has descended into a regime of systemic and widespread humiliation, coercion, and terror, aimed at stripping Palestinians not only of their liberty but of their dignity, identity and even the most basic sense of humanity. Far from isolated excesses, such conduct has been institutionalized within detention structures, politically endorsed by Israeli authorities and publicly justified, or even celebrated, by segments of society”. [para 84]

A report by UN Watch repudiates all of Albanese’s conclusions. The organisation is affiliated to the American Jewish Committee.

Peace of any kind seems a long way off in the region. The bombing and assassinations in Iran, the massive death toll in Gaza, increasing violence in the West Bank and now the invasion of southern Lebanon seems to show a pattern of violence as a kind of first port of call for the nation. Assisted by the US they are immensely powerful militarily and seem to have no real wish to compromise and certainly not recognise a Palestinian state. The tragedy is that it will not bring them the security they so desperately desire. A new generation of people with hatred towards Israel is in the making and will come to haunt them in years to come.

The treatment of Albanese is wholly unjustified and vindictive. Her reports can be criticised and errors pointed out in the normal way. But the death threats to her and her family, the seizing of her apartment and other coercive measures are wholly unacceptable.

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