Palestinians in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra have huddled inside their homes for days on end, unable to leave because of the threat posed by Israeli settlers.The Israeli military, which over the past three years has displayed staggering military and intelligence capabilities from Beirut to Tehran, has yet to fully remove the settlers from the area of the village, about an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv.The United States, which provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, has issued a scathing rebuke, perhaps because one of the homeowners is a Palestinian American living in Ohio.U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee referred to the settlers as “terrorists.” Israel’s defense minister dismissed them as radical misfits — “boys on the hills.”In reality, they are the tip of the spear for a much larger movement, supported by successive Israeli governments and supercharged under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that is aimed at cementing Israeli rule over the territory and preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Settlements built over decades now house over 500,000Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for a future state.Since then, the Israeli government has built nearly 150 settlements that are home to well over 500,000 Jewish settlers. Many of the settlements resemble fully developed suburbs, with apartment blocks, shopping malls, parks and industrial zones.
