The Israel Police and others say that a closer look at the data actually shows a decline in the numbers, and that the spike comes from vague and "unprofessional" terminology meant to inflate the numbers, according to reporting by Ariel Cahana of Israel Hayom.
Ever since the war began, reports have come in from the IDF and NGOs of a spike in nationalist violence by settlers in Judea and Samaria against local Palestinians. The Biden Administration, the British and European governments have all warned of sanctions and even entry restrictions for "extremist settlers" engaging in such actions.
But it turns out that a closer look at the numbers reveals the IDF's official definition of "settler violence" to mostly include things like two-sided fights where it's not clear who started the violence, at least ostensible acts of self-defense against prior violence, and even just overly aggressive security response teams trying to stop terrorism, according to the Israel Police and Maariv reporter Kalman Libeskind.
Libeskind himself, in addition to arguing many of the cases of "settler violence" are at least disputable if not downright wrong, also took care to remind that these discussions of Jewish violence never include the enormous number of violent incidents on the part of local Palestinians.
IDF Central Command itself has also stated that many cases of NGO claims of alleged settler violence turn out to be unfounded, such as one allegation of property destruction which turned out to be the result of a legal IDF operation searching for weapons.
The Israel Police has expressed its displeasure at what they call the IDF's "unprofessional" terminology and their insistence on engaging investigations and information collection which are properly the purview of the Police, who as noted see a decline in violent incidents committed by settlers, not an increase.
Even a defense source speaking to Ariel Cahana of Israel Hayom said that, with or without this dispute over numbers, "there's no such thing as 'settler violence.' The overwhelming majority of the settlers are law-abiding and play a central role in fighting the Hamas terror organization. Those who carry out these actions are an extreme fringe."
