What’s behind Netanyahu’s condemnation of this weekend’s settler pogroms?

The Israeli prime minister blames a ‘handful of rioters’ for the West Bank pogroms, but analysts say his statements mask a state-sponsored campaign of massive settlement expansion.Atop a disputed building where about a hundred hardline Jewish settlers have hunkered down, one settler adjusts a banner with Hebrew writing that reads: 'Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, populate the Patriarchs House immediately', in the West Bank city of Hebron, July 26, 2017 [Amir Cohen/Reuters]Published On 30 Aug 2026A wave of coordinated Israeli settler attacks swept across the occupied West Bank over the weekend, leaving dozens of Palestinians injured and properties torched.The pogroms have seen little or no response from Israeli police and soldiers.Dozens of settlers attacked a Palestinian home in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, with tear gas and stones, injuring seven people. A Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance that attempted to reach the besieged families was also attacked.Simultaneously, Israeli forces fired tear gas during incursions into the Far’a refugee camp, el-Bireh, and al-Mughayyir. Soldiers also attacked journalists in Hebron’s Old City.A Palestinian family and an American NBC news crew were assaulted in the village of Jalud. In Arrabeh, two Palestinians were also beaten near the Mevo Dotan settlement, in a weekend of violence against locals by Israeli settlers.The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemned the escalation, particularly the 20-day siege on al-Mughayyir, describing it as a systematic policy of forced displacement and colonial expansion.Surgical isolationIsraeli politicians have launched a coordinated campaign to minimise the public relations damage after the pogroms.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement strongly condemning the “criminal acts of violence” in Qusra and Jalud, blaming it on a “handful of rioters” who violated the law, interfered with the military, and harmed Israel’s standing in the world.He publicly stated that he expected law enforcement authorities to “arrest the rioters and bring them to justice”.However, this public outrage contrasted sharply with the reality on the ground.Documented footage captured masked settlers storming the villages of Qusra and Jalud in open pickup trucks, according to Israeli media reports. Despite this visual evidence and Netanyahu’s stated demands, the Israeli police’s West Bank district, under the command of Moshe Pinchi, made zero arrests.President Isaac Herzog echoed the sentiment, calling the events a “red line”.Former US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee praised Herzog’s statement and claimed that the half-million Israelis living in the West Bank are “most disgusted by a small group of thugs”.The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that the violence carried out by “extremists” stands in complete contradiction to the values of Israel.Opposition leader Yair Lapid described another weekend of violent rampages as a “moral stain” and said the government’s failure to tackle Israeli violence in the West Bank is a “national disgrace”.Experts told Al Jazeera that this chorus of condemnation from the Israeli establishment represents a calculated political manoeuvre by the government, which is actively engineering the annexation of the West Bank.Ehab Jabareen, a writer, analyst, and Palestinian citizen of Israel, said that Netanyahu is pursuing a “political surgical isolation process” to shield the broader settlement project from international scrutiny.“He puts forward a political equation stating that there are 500,000 legitimate settlers, alongside a few dozen deviants or anomalies,” Jabareen said.“He wants to punish, or give the illusion of punishing, the most blatant link in order to protect the wider system.”By defining the latest pogroms as a criminal anomaly, Netanyahu aims to isolate this from the wider settler enterprise, Jabareen added.Security fearsFew see the prime minister’s statement as anything more than a practical response to fears among the military that unchecked settler pogroms could ignite a massive Palestinian uprising in the occupied West Bank.Recent closed-door security assessments by Major General Avi Bluth, head of the Israeli military’s Central Command, warned that “nationalistic crime”, such as the pogroms, could spark a massive response from Palestinians.“The army speaks to Netanyahu in the language of cost-benefit analysis,” Jabareen noted.“Dozens of settlers create an open front that requires the mobilisation of thousands of soldiers. Netanyahu did not say this is unacceptable because it targets Palestinians, but rather said it obstructs the army.”Mamoun Abu Amer, an analyst on Israeli politics, dismissed the idea that the state has lost control over the settlers.He emphasised that the military consistently protects the settlers during these attacks while heavily punishing Palestinians who attempt to defend themselves.“The settlers are too cowardly to carry out any attack without the sponsorship and cover of the government,” Abu Amer said, pointing to instances where the military demolished Palestinian homes simply because the residents resisted settler assaults.Israeli settlers confront Palestinian and Israeli activists accompanying Palestinian landowners on their property, which is threatened with confiscation by Israeli settlers, in Beit Sahour in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 14, 2026 [Mussa Qawasma/Reuters]Engineered expansionWhile top Israeli officials publicly distance themselves from individual attacks, the government is still systematically funding, legalising, and expanding the settlers’ presence.A report by the Israeli organisation Peace Now detailed how successive governments, heavily influenced by Netanyahu, have thrived on expanding settlements since the 1993 Oslo Accords.Thirty years ago, there were approximately 110,000 settlers in the West Bank and 140,000 in East Jerusalem.Today, those numbers have skyrocketed to 465,000 in the West Bank and 230,000 in East Jerusalem.The current far-right Israeli government has accelerated this process to unprecedented levels.According to a 2025 European Union report, the Israeli government officially approved the establishment of 54 new settlements in the West Bank in a single year, a more than tenfold increase from the five approved in 2024.In parallel, 86 new outposts were erected, and a record-breaking 63,311 units were also approved across the occupied territories.Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who holds sweeping administrative powers over the territory, recently declared a “revolution in settlement” expansion, openly linking the construction to the prevention of Palestinian statehood.The government recently passed a record $271bn national budget that bypassed legal frameworks to allocate 400 million shekels ($134m) to the Ministry of Settlement and National Missions, which officially authorises illegal outposts.This massive infrastructure investment includes advancing the strategic E1 settlement project, which could sever the West Bank in two and effectively kill any hope for the establishment of a Palestinian state.The government recently issued tenders for 1,234 homes as part of a larger plan to build 3,401 units connecting the Ma’ale Adumim settlement to occupied East Jerusalem, as part of this plan.International complicityThe United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that settler violence is on the rise, recording over 1,540 attacks that caused Palestinian casualties or property damage this year alone.OCHA noted that the monthly average of these attacks is now higher than in any other year on record.