The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

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Huckabee calls rogue Israeli settlers ‘terrorists’ as White House presses Netanyahu to condemn siege

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JERUSALEM — When Mike Huckabee starts calling Israelis in the West Bank “terrorists,” somebody had better pay attention.

The latest development Friday is that U.S. officials are pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to publicly condemn a group of extremist settlers who have spent nearly a week surrounding Palestinian homes in the West Bank village of Qusra — including a home owned by a Palestinian American from Ohio.

The settlers allegedly blocked access to the homes and cut water and electricity. Israeli forces have since moved into the area, dismantled settler encampments and removed at least one newly erected tent, but residents told Reuters on Friday that settlers remained nearby.

And Huckabee — hardly a man anyone could plausibly accuse of hostility toward Israel — has had enough. “The actions of those doing this to this family’s home is criminal,” the U.S. ambassador wrote on X. Then he used a word that virtually guarantees attention in Israel: “Israeli terrorists.”

Huckabee called the episode a “horrific act of terror” intended to intimidate the family and blasted the perpetrators’ conduct as “disgusting” and “thuggish.” That is quite a statement coming from this ambassador.

Huckabee has spent years defending the historical and religious connection of Jews to Judea and Samaria and has been one of the strongest American supporters of Israeli communities in the West Bank.

Which is why his criticism carries more weight than another routine denunciation from somebody reflexively hostile to Israel. And Huckabee made certain nobody confused the violent minority with the entire settler population.

“‘Settlers’ are not the problem in Judea/Samaria,” he wrote in a separate post.

“‘Unsettlers’ are.”

He described them as a “very small minority who do great damage to Palestinian families & to Israel.” There are more than half a million Israeli settlers living in the West Bank, and prominent settlement leaders themselves are condemning what happened in Qusra.

Yisrael Ganz, chairman of the Yesha Council, said there was “absolutely no justification for violence against uninvolved people or against the security forces.” Other settlement officials warned that the extremists were inflicting enormous damage on Israel and the settlement movement.

The confrontation centers on several homes on the edge of Qusra, south of Nablus. For days, radical settlers established tents outside the houses and prevented residents from safely entering or leaving. The families said electricity and water had been cut, leaving people trapped as supplies dwindled. One of the homes belongs to Palestinian-American Loui Ridi, who has been watching events unfold from Ohio.

The United Nations reported that approximately 15 people, including children, had been trapped in the homes without running water or electricity.

The IDF ultimately deployed additional troops, removed illegal settler outposts and said forces were operating to protect residents and maintain order. Israeli military officials say illegal outposts have been evacuated more than 150 times during the first half of this year.

But criticism intensified after video showed men in military clothing joining settlers in prayer near the besieged homes. The IDF said disciplinary measures would be taken against any personnel involved. That’s not exactly the optics Israel needs.

Israeli officials are also pushing back strongly against attempts to portray the violence as representative of the larger Jewish population in Judea and Samaria. A senior Israeli official told Fox News that the government “doesn’t accept vigilantes or any form of violence by juvenile delinquents” and said an additional IDF battalion had been deployed to address the problem. The official also emphasized the enormous amount of Palestinian terrorism directed at Israelis and warned against drawing a “false symmetry” between the two.

Israeli civilians in the West Bank have been subjected to shootings, stabbings, rock attacks and other Palestinian terrorism for years. Israeli officials say there were hundreds of Palestinian attacks against Jews in May alone. But condemning Palestinian terrorism does not require pretending Jewish terrorism doesn’t exist.

In fact, Israeli security officials themselves have increasingly described extremist settler attacks as a serious problem. The Times of Israel reported this week that Israeli security figures recorded 660 nationalist attacks during the first half of 2026, a 63% increase over the same period a year earlier.

Israeli columnist Nadav Eyal told Fox News that there is now a political consensus stretching “from the left to the right” that some of what is occurring constitutes “Jewish terrorism.” That’s not Hamas saying it. That’s Israelis.

The controversy has now moved beyond the ambassador. Reuters reported Friday that White House officials are urging Netanyahu himself to publicly condemn the Qusra siege. The U.S. became particularly involved after learning that one of the targeted homes belonged to an American citizen. Netanyahu had not publicly addressed the Qusra incident as of Friday morning.

That creates an uncomfortable political situation for the Israeli prime minister, whose governing coalition includes strong advocates for expanding Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria.

But Huckabee has already made the administration’s position rather difficult to misunderstand.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

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