I am an Israeli rabbi. I cannot stay silent about settler violence - opinion

This week in the West Bank was brutal. It was also, in many ways, a regular week.

On October 16, Palestinian farmers in Abu Falah were attacked by Israeli settlers while harvesting olives. Trees were burned, residents were assaulted, and Heidi Levine, an American Jewish photojournalist for The Washington Post, was beaten so severely that she required hospitalization and surgery. She was wearing a vest clearly marked PRESS. She was there to document the violence. She became one of its victims.

The following day, European diplomats visiting the Palestinian village of Taybeh to express solidarity with its residents and olive harvest were reportedly attacked as well.

These incidents are horrifying. But what should frighten us even more is how ordinary such violence has become.

Settler violence against Palestinians does not begin with the olive harvest, and it does not end when the harvest is over. It is a recurring reality across the West Bank: farmers threatened on their land, families living under intimidation, property damaged or destroyed, and people struggling to carry on with ordinary life without fear.

The olive harvest brings volunteers, journalists, and international attention to some of these incidents. It does not create the underlying violence. It exposes a reality that too often remains invisible to Israeli society.

Those responsible must be held accountable. Their actions, however, must not be used to assign collective blame to the wider Jewish population living in the West Bank. Accountability requires identifying and confronting perpetrators, not condemning an entire community.

As an Israeli rabbi and co-chair of Rabbis for Human Rights, I encounter this reality not as an abstract political debate but as a moral challenge. I cannot accept that violence against Palestinians has become routine.

On October 16, Rabbi Dov Lior, the former chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba, issued a halachic ruling permitting Jews to harvest olives from Palestinian-owned groves. He argued that Palestinian farmers who had been unable to access their crops had already received sufficient benefit from previous years when they could harvest them. He further argued that taking the olives would demonstrate Jewish ownership of the land and fulfill a religious commandment.

This reasoning turns a farmer’s inability to reach his own trees into a justification for taking his livelihood. The more vulnerable the farmer becomes, the easier it supposedly becomes to dispossess him.

A religious ruling cannot turn theft into a mitzvah.

The Torah is explicit: “You shall not steal” (Leviticus 19:11), and “You shall not rob your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:13). These commandments do not come with an exception for national or religious aspirations. Nor can we separate property rights from the dignity of the person whose property is being taken.

Lior’s ruling rests on the assertion that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people and that Palestinians therefore have no legitimate claim to it. But Jewish tradition does not speak with one voice in support of this position. The Tzohar rabbinic organization rejected the ruling, emphasizing that theft is forbidden whether the victim is Jewish or non-Jewish.

Genesis 1:27 teaches that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. In Bereshit Rabbah 24:7, Rabbi Tanhuma further emphasizes the dignity inherent in that image. No one loses that dignity because they are Palestinian, Muslim, or belong to a people with whom we are in conflict.

As a rabbi, I cannot accept an interpretation of Judaism that invokes the sanctity of the land while disregarding the sanctity of the people who live on it.

For Palestinian families, olive trees represent far more than an agricultural resource. They connect generations to the land, sustain livelihoods, and preserve family traditions. Yet farmers across the West Bank face intimidation, assaults, burned trees, stolen crops, and obstacles to accessing their groves.

Levine’s beating makes this reality impossible to ignore. Her press identification did not protect her. We should be asking why Palestinian farmers need protection simply to harvest their own olives – and why journalists documenting attacks on them are themselves at risk.

At Rabbis for Human Rights, we organize volunteers to accompany Palestinian farmers during the harvest. We arrive early in the morning and stand alongside families who should never have to depend on our presence to exercise their basic rights. We call ourselves a human wall. We cannot guarantee every farmer’s safety, but we can refuse to abandon people facing intimidation.

Our presence is essential, but it also exposes the limits of what volunteers can accomplish. We cannot substitute for a state that has a duty to protect the people living under its control.

The Israeli government must ensure safe access to agricultural land, prevent attacks, investigate allegations, and hold perpetrators accountable. Condemnations alone are not enough.

I understand the fear and grief that have shaped Israeli society since October 7. I understand the insecurity many Israelis experience and the desire to protect our communities. But trauma cannot become a license to inflict suffering on others. Our pain does not erase Palestinian suffering. Our attachment to this land does not cancel someone else’s attachment to it.

I do this work because I love Israel. The Jewish people’s historical connection to this land carries responsibilities as well as rights. If we speak of being a light unto the nations, we must hold ourselves accountable to the moral standards we proclaim.

Neither Israelis nor Palestinians are going anywhere. We share this land, and we must find a way to live here together in peace. That peace must be built on dignity, justice, and equality for all – not on fear, dispossession, or the denial of another people’s rights.

I want to live in a country where Palestinian farmers can walk to their olive trees without fear, where violence is met with accountability, and where every person enjoys equal rights and protection under the law.

This is not a dream separate from our Jewish tradition. It is a demand that emerges from its deepest teachings. Our task is not simply to claim this land but to help build a society in which everyone who lives here can flourish.

That is the Israel I love – and the future I will continue to work for.

The writer is co-chair of Rabbis for Human Rights.