“‘He who sows injustice.’”
Poisoned minds, poisoned land.
He who sows injustice will reap sorrow.
—Proverbs 22:8
25 FEBRUARY—When Thomas Friedman tells readers of the Zionist-aligned New York Times that Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and Gaza—altogether its unhinged nationalist messianism—threatens to destroy Israel, you know the Zionist project is in trouble.
The greatest existential threat to Israel, as Friedman has it, is not the Islamic Republic of Iran but Netanyahu and his deranged coalition of “messianic zealots, Arab-hating nationalists and anti-modern ultra-Orthodox Israelis.” Read Friedman’s words again and you appreciate them even more for where they appeared.
It’s a fine thing, of course, that Friedman understands this and says so in the pages of The Times. But he fails to understand that Netanyahu, like Trump, is symptom and not cause.
Unable as he is to repudiate the Zionist project, Friedman requires a scapegoat. He cannot yet see, or perhaps refuses to admit, that the twin ideologies destroying Israel—Zionism and Jewish supremacism—have so thoroughly poisoned and corrupted Israeli Jewish society that the country cannot and does not deserve to be saved.
Numerous of Friedman’s readers are of clearer minds. Here is a comment posted under the name Citizen:
As usual, Friedman lays the onus for Israel’s behavior on Netanyahu. But he has been elected five times, and is now the longest-serving prime minister in the history of the country. Israel’s policies have the support of most Israeli Jews, and when Netanyahu exits the stage, these policies will continue.
A Canadian reader using the pseudonym Fruminous Bear reminds us of the shocking extent of racism in Israel:
Tamir Sorek, a professor at Penn State, commissioned a survey of the opinions of Jewish Israelis about the Palestinian population in Gaza and in Israel. The survey was conducted in March 2025 by an Israeli polling firm, Geocartography Knowledge Group. The views of 1,005 Israeli Jews, ranging from secular to ultra religious were sampled and recorded. Among the results:
¶ 82 percent of respondents wanted all Palestinians expelled from Gaza.
¶ 56 percent of respondents wanted Arab citizens of Israel expelled from the country.
¶ 47 percent of respondents wanted all Palestinians in Gaza to be killed after the I.D.F.’s conquest of the enclave.
“In sum,” Fruminous concludes, “the problem Mr. Friedman has laid bare is not simply a consequence of Netanyahu’s practices. It is also a consequence of the way a large percentage of Jewish Israeli’s view Palestinians as less than human.”
The Zionist project is in trouble, to put this reader’s point another way, because it is a poison that corrupts the humanity of its own adherents—Jewish, Christian, secular. Gaza is proof of this. So is the ongoing ethnic cleansing and annexation of the West Bank.
But look closely: Every act of violence perpetrated against Palestinians is actually an indication of weakness, simultaneously an expression of fear and desperation. Israel terrorizes its neighbors and inflicts cruelty wherever it goes—not because it’s strong, but because it’s afraid.
I read fear, not confidence, in the events I will now describe. And I read fear, not principle—and certainly not humanity or compassion—in the countless Tom Friedmans among us.
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As regular readers of West Bank Alerts know, I publish frequent updates on the situation in various villages, among them Kisan, a village of 845 people—430 of whom are children—located 15 kilometers southeast of Bethlehem. Many of these alerts are made possible by my contact Adnan Al–Abayat, who has documented settler violence in and near Kisan for many years, often at significant personal risk.
Adnan’s reports from Kisan are a snapshot of what’s happening throughout the West Bank, in every town and village in what little remains of rural Palestine. Kisan isn’t unusual or exceptional. For this reason as well, Adnan’s work is invaluable. It exposes Israel’s criminality and the acceleration of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Kisan may be one small village, but it tells a much larger story.
In this past year, what little remained of Kisan’s historic land has been stolen in its entirety. It was seized dunam by dunam (a dunam being slightly less than a square kilometer) over the course of many years, as the village was surrounded by illegal settlements and outposts. Because I wanted to be certain that I had this right—that all of the land is gone—I texted Adnan asking, “Has all of Kisan’s land been stolen? Is there anything left outside of the village?” This was his reply:
Nothing remains outside of Kisan, and now the most difficult stage is targeting the village itself and its outskirts.
This is what Adnan now documents, the final stage of the ethnic cleansing of Kisan.
Grazing and agricultural land held in common by the people of Kisan for generations—indeed, for centuries and millennia before even a village was there, land that supported, fed, and sustained them—has been taken by Jewish settlers, planted with the blue star of David, claimed for “the Jewish state.”
The village itself is now under almost daily attack by Jewish shepherds and violent gangs, supported and protected by Israeli soldiers. Their goal is to empty Kisan and seize it for themselves. Kisan shepherds, desperate to graze their animals, risk arrest and attack by grazing their sheep on land adjacent to the village—land that has been overgrazed and that settlers are now poisoning with chemicals.
In what follows I share numerous of Adnan’s texts, photos, and videos dating from 31 January through mid-February. Not to be missed for its significance is the almost tedious monotony in Adnan’s documentation: It captures the relentless rhythm of ethnic cleansing. Insistent, persistent, repetitive, this is, like torture, meant to break its victims.
And this relentless cruelty is precisely what Thomas Friedman and all Zionist apologists miss—or overlook, or shrug off, or tacitly approve. Their concern is Israel’s survival and geopolitical dominance. Friedman is troubled more by the blowback deriving from Israel’s behavior, not—read the column again—by the suffering of Palestinians. He’s worried about its consequences for Israel’s security and “the security of Jews all over the world.” The latter is now a legitimate concern, certainly. But I propose we recognize a significant distinction: Is Friedman concerned with the Zionist regime’s brutality or with the damage Zionist brutality does to Israel’s reputation?
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Bear witness with me once again.
31 January.
Text from Adnan:
Settler herders attacked village shepherds this afternoon in the only remaining area they have left on the western side of Kisan.
The following screenshots were taken from videos of settlers on all-terrain vehicles and with their herds. They have hundreds of dunams of stolen land but drive their sheep and vehicles as close to the village as possible.
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2 February.
Text from Adnan:
In the southeastern part of the city, citizen Zakaria Warad is subjected to constant harassment by settler herders on a daily basis, who bring their flocks of sheep to the side of his house, vandalize his property, and provoke him as part of their terrorist practices aimed at restricting the residents and displacing them.
This video is further documentation of Jewish shepherds bullying and provoking residents by grazing their animals as close to their homes as possible.
Visit the original article to view the video.
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4 February.
Text from Adnan:
Settler harassment and attacks against the residents of Kisan village continue daily. Settlers released their flock of sheep near the home of citizen Zakaria Warad as part of a policy of harassment and provocation practiced by settler groups in the area, further exacerbating the suffering of its residents without any deterrent.
The first video below, shot through a chain-link fence, shows a settler grazing his sheep next to a home. In the second video a settler drives his all-terrain vehicle next to the village. These vehicles are are given to the settlers by the Zionist regime and are routinely used to harass Palestinians.
Visit the original article to view the video.
Visit the original article to view the video.
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8 February.
Text from Adnan:
Harassment continues against the residents of Kisan village in its southeastern part, where settler herders continue their attacks on land next to homes with the aim of restricting, provoking, confiscating those lands and depriving the owners of those lands of their right to access them.
The above photo shows sheep belonging to a settler (circled in green) next to a Kisan residence. The video below shows the settler bringing his flock hard by the house; you can hear the voices of two Palestinian children. Imagine the impact of this on children. Imagine their lives.
Visit the original article to view the video.
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11 February.
Text from Adnan:
Attacks of settler herders against the citizens in the southeastern part of Kisan village continue unabated and have become a daily occurrence.
Even the settler’s dogs attack homes and prevent citizens from approaching.
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13 February.
Text from Adnan:
This afternoon, settler attacks against the residents of Kisan village continued. Armed settlers chased villagers away, preventing them from grazing their livestock on lands adjacent to the village and bringing settler shepherds to the area.
The photo above on the left shows an armed settler on horseback; to the right are Jewish herders accompanied by their armed and mounted guard.
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13 February.
Text from Adnan:
Citizen Zakaria Warad discovered today that settlers had sprayed the grass and some bales of straw with unknown chemicals.
The use of chemicals by settlers to poison Palestinian land is consistent with Zionist scorched-earth policies in Palestine and throughout the region. Israel has recently been spraying the herbicide glyphosate in southern Lebanon and on the Syrian border at levels 20 and 30 times the recommended concentration as reported by the U.N., France24, the BBC, Middle East Eye, and Al Jazeera.
Glyphosate, a clear liquid, is frequently mixed with a blue dye so it’s application is visible. Given the blue tinge in the above photos, and Israel’s practice of using it, it’s likely the poison used in Kisan is glyphosate. A contact who monitors human rights abuses in al–Khalil (a.k.a. Hebron) told me recently that chemicals are being sprayed elsewhere in the West Bank. This is an attack on the local food supply and amounts to what I will call ecocide.
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16 February.
Text from Adnan:
The occupation forces arrested a young man, Muhammad Saleh Al–Abayat, while he was with his sheep near the village houses. The arrest was made at the request of settlers.
I asked Adnan what reason was given for the arrest. This was his reply:
The reason is that the settler was afraid because Muhammad was wearing a Bedouin scarf on his head. He was wearing a black keffiyeh, and part of his neck and face was covered. Shepherds often wear head coverings, and sometimes nose coverings, to protected them from dust, dirt, and harmful flies found on the sheep.
The following photo showing Muhammad (seated on the ground, to the right within the red square) wearing a Bedouin scarf on his head.
Muhammad was blindfolded, put into an armored vehicle, and taken away. He was held for four hours, spoke to no one, and was released in a desolate area some 20 kilometers from Kisan and left to walk home. All of this, as Adnan said, “to appease some settlers this afternoon.”
The armed settler in the photo below (to the right) was among those who summoned the occupation soldiers.
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20 February.
Text from Adnan:
Settler gangs chased the sheep of residents in the village today as part of the ongoing harassment and provocation to which the village of Kisan is subjected.
The photos below need little explanation. A gang of settlers drove through the village in an all-terrain vehicle and chased a flock of sheep. This is a common form of harassment that causes extreme stress in the animals. It’s particularly detrimental when they are malnourished because they cannot graze.
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23 February.
Text from Adnan:
This morning, the so-called Israeli Civil Administration notified four houses in the village to halt construction. This is part of a new escalation targeting inhabited homes in the village.
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Just this month the Zionist regime took new steps to seize control over the West Bank in a move that amounts to de facto annexation, as reported here by +972. Among other measures, it resumed the “settlement of land title” process, which was suspended in 1967. All Palestinians in Area C—60 percent of the West Bank—with a claim to land must provide documentation proving ownership. Failing that, their land, homes, and businesses will be confiscated by Israel.
Proving ownership is difficult in the West Bank. Less than one third of land was officially registered during the Ottoman Empire and the British mandate era. Home demolition is set to explode. The village of Kisan, which is located in area C, will not survive unscathed, if at all.
But Kisan’s fate, whatever it is, will surely be Israel’s as well. This is the truth we must not forget. The same Bible used by messianic Zionist Jews to justify their racism and brutality warns in the Ketuvim, which includes Proverbs, of the bitter harvest to come.
The Zionist state cannot commit genocide and terrorize its neighbors with impunity and hope for a secure and happy future. Israel, as Thomas Friedman knows, cannot ultimately survive as an isolated and despised nation. Zionism, and all those who cling to it, will be its undoing. If Friedman and the liberal Jews for whom he speaks care about the Jews of the world they should repudiate Zionism and the genocidal “Jewish state” it spawned.
Previously published in West Bank Alerts.
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