In early November of last year, barely a month after Hamas terrorists breached an internationally recognized border, murdered more than 1,200 Israelis, and kidnapped hundreds more, Michael Herzog attended a meeting on Capitol Hill. Israel’s ambassador to the United States, accompanied by his military attaché, likely hoped that the briefing would focus on the Jewish state’s efforts to defend itself from the heaviest blow it had ever sustained.
But the conversation took a very different tack. Instead of focusing on Hamas or Hezbollah, the lawmakers in attendance, sources told Tablet, including senior-ranking senators from both parties, wanted to focus on the risks posed by Israel—specifically, by roving bands of allegedly violent settlers in the West Bank. Lawmakers pressed the Israeli officials, going so far as to assert that uniformed IDF soldiers were escorting Israeli settlers to attack Palestinians.
