Over 400 Israeli activists from left-wing organizations showed up Feb. 4 in the Palestinian village of Burin in the West Bank. They came to demonstrate solidarity with the villagers and to help local farmers plant olive trees to replace the trees torn down in a violent attack two weeks earlier. The perpetrators of the assault were extremist settlers, all of them masked and armed with clubs and other lethal weapons. They were filmed attacking and beating up activists from Rabbis for Human Rights, in one case even setting fire to a vehicle belonging to one of their victims. Many of their victims required medical attention. One of them had his arm broken.

This time, the demonstrators from the left were joined by Knesset members Gaby Lasky and Mossi Raz of Meretz and Ahmad Tibi of the Arab Joint List. This time, dozens of soldiers and police from the Judea and Samaria district were on-site to secure the planting and to protect the participants from another attack by settler extremists.

The plantings and the show of solidarity with the residents and farmers of Burin was set against a backdrop of what has become known as "settler violence.” The term was first coined last December by Minister of Public Security Omer Bar Lev of the Labor party following a meeting with US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was visiting Israel at the time. It has since become a “hot potato” in Israeli politics. There have been sharp disputes within Israeli society in general and the Cabinet in particular over its validity, with the right trying to play down the extent of the issue. They claim that the cases in question are isolated incidents, or a very marginal phenomenon among isolated settlers. Under no circumstances, they insist, can it be compared to the scope of violence originating on the Palestinian side. 

Evidence of how sensitive the issue is and how heated the debate over the term can get was evident in an argument that broke out Feb. 4 at the security Cabinet weekly meeting between Bar Lev, who is responsible for the police, and Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi over the authority of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops stationed in the West Bank. Bar Lev demanded that they take action against settlers who attack Palestinians or Israelis in the West Bank. He argued that the area was the IDF’s responsibility and under its jurisdiction, while the police do not have enough manpower in the region. He stressed that the IDF has the authority of a police force when dealing with Israeli civilians in the West Bank and, as a result, have full authority to detain Israelis involved in acts of violence until the police arrive.