Michael Spath, August 15, 2026
In the last six months, the illegal Yatziv Settlement has doubled in size in Beit Sahour (adjacent village to Bethlehem, the place of “Shepherds Fields”). Thirty more caravans, adding to the original thirty from last year, have expanded the settlement along with permanent infrastructure – water tanks, playgrounds, residential areas, utilities, roads, and more. And of course, the Israeli military is there to “protect” the illegal settlers (read “intimidate”, read “ethnically cleanse” the Palestinian residents of Beit Sahour). The settlement is important for Israeli expansion, connecting existing settlements surrounding Bethlehem choking off villagers in the countryside from the “little town.”
And this month, according to our friend, Dalia Qumsieh (Balasan Initiative), Taybeh, just a few miles northeast of Ramallah, “the last Palestinian Christian town in the West Bank is under siege and faces the risk of forced displacement.” (https://balasan.org/taybeh-the-last-palestinian-christian-town-is-under-siege-and-faces-the-risk-of-forced-displacement/). The Israeli military has declared Taybeh “a closed military zone” as settlers have threatened and terrorized Taybeh’s residents and property, destroyed their farm equipment, and attacked Christian religious sites, including setting fire to St. George’s Church. It’s been reported that 15 families have left sine October 7, 2023, an estimated 80-90 people in all. This is especially alarming given Taybeh’s historical significance as a Christian heritage site.
These are not isolated events, as the US media is wont to portray them (isolated settlers, random acts of violence, a problem simply of the Netanyahu administration). No, this is part of a systematic, 78-year-long strategy of ethnic cleansing and genocide, ramped up in Israel’s “final solution” agenda of the last almost three years. The Beit Sahour settlement, like all West Bank settlements, and the government-ordered closing of Taybeh, like all of Israel’s violence against Palestinians, are egregious violation of international humanitarian law, rulings by the International Court of Justice, the Fourth Geneva Convention, and others. So save your crocodile tears, Mike Huckabee.
This doesn’t even mention the threats and violence directed against our dear friends, Daoud, Amal, and Daher Nassar and their family, and their Tent of Nations farm in the Bethlehem hill country. An increase in caravans immediately outside their farm, regular harassment, armed Israeli settler incursions onto the property, and a road being built right up to their boundary line fence with plans to cut the Nassar farm (in their family for over a century) in half.
And while these three attacks are on Christian properties, we do not forget the hundreds and hundreds of other heinous, flagrant, and illegal displacements, annexations, and dispossessions and blatant murder of Palestinian Muslims as well throughout Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli genocide is just that, an intentional desire and strategy to erase Palestine – its history and culture – from human memory. Evidence? Recent reports of hundreds of tons of rubble being removed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza with the remains of the victims of Israel’s genocide paving the way for Israeli and US development.
All this, and nary a peep, at least from the corporate-owned media.
And nary a peep from our politicians.
And nary a peep from churches.
And the machinery used in Gaza? Retrofitted Caterpillar bulldozers made in the USA.