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Major-General Avi Bluth, the Israeli commander in charge of the occupied West Bank, was unaware that his comments would be revealed as he boasted of the success of Israeli politics in the occupied territory.
The army, he said in a statement published by the Israeli daily Haaretz last week, “is killing like we haven’t killed since 1967”.
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Israel, Bluth added, is “turning villages into war zones”. In short, he admitted to his audience what many already knew: that Israel was practicing a two-pronged policy, refraining from shooting at Israelis throwing stones at Israeli forces, while shooting at Palestinians freely.
“This (throwing stones) is terrorism, not popular terrorism or terrorism – there is a popular (‘people’) dance,” said Bluth, adding that the army killed 42 stone throwers in Palestine in 2025. Shooting Israeli residents, however, was important to avoid, he said, because of what he called “society”.
Al Jazeera approached Bluth, through Israeli officials, for comment, but had not received a response at the time of writing.
Interrupting words
That double standard will come as no surprise to anyone living in the annexed West Bank and occupying East Jerusalem, or the rights groups who campaign for it. However, within an Israeli society that analysts describe as right-wing and nationalist, comments like Bluth’s took on pride, regardless of personal cost.
Where government ministers, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, celebrate The passage of the death penalty law aimed at Palestinians and cakes decorated with nono, or the minister of finance Bezalel Smotrich can describe the Israeli government with Palestinian members as a thousand times worse than the destruction led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, Bluth’s comments are not surprising.
“This is nothing,” Orly Noy, the Hebrew-language editor of Call Center, told Al Jazeera, describing the way Israel’s far-right has taken over the country’s institutions.
A few years ago, Noy explained, “(former military organization) Breaking the Silence.” report showing that Israeli soldiers in Area C (a part of the West Bank under full Israeli control) did not know that part of their job was to protect the Palestinian people from colonial violence. They didn’t even know. This was years ago, before October 7, before the genocide in Gaza. People in Israel could have them there; they don’t care now.”
Racism as a process
In MarchIsrael passed laws that allowed the killings – but only for Palestinians living in the West Bank.
A month earlier, Israel was again criticized around the world after it enacted laws that several countries called “de facto annexation“In the occupied territory, I am re-establishing a system in which the lives of Palestinians and Israeli residents are governed by different legal regimes: one of those who have lived there for generations and the other of Israel who claim to have biblical rights to the territory.
“This is not new,” Yair Dvir, of the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, told Al Jazeera: “These are the principles that have supported Israel’s apartheid for years. What is new is that words like these have been spoken every day by politicians, military leaders and the media.
“I feel that the international community is not stopping Israel, the US is supporting it, so there is no need to hide the policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing – on the contrary, it is what today’s leaders are proud of.”
The human cost of racism
These policies seem to be increasing because of the US-Israel war on Iran.
According to statistics written by a United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs12 Palestinians have been killed in the attacks of those who live in the West Bank since February 28 – the day of Israel and the first US war in Iran – and hundreds more were injured and forced to leave their homes.
In contrast, the same office recorded 10 Palestinians killed by settlers in the entire year 2025. The Israeli army killed at least 226 Palestinians during the same period.
Reached by phone, Aida Touma-Sliman, a member of parliament representing the leftist Hadash party, described a trip to the village of Duma, near Nablus in the occupied West Bank earlier this week. The village was the site of the 2015 massacre of three Palestinians, including an 18-month-old child. Ali Dawabshehwho was burned alive.
“I visited Duma after the attack 11 years ago, and I visited it this week,” he says.
While ending the occupation of the West Bank is a great hope for its people, for now, their best chance lies in the upcoming Israeli elections, Touma-Sliman added.
“The only hope I have, and a small one, is that, in the elections later this year, we will vote these fascists into government and maybe begin to fix the whole mess they have created.”
