Jewish terrorism threatens Israel’s survival, security think tank warns

Israel’s leading security think tank has warned that Jewish terrorism now threatens the state’s survival, and that the absence of any decisive response to the surge in attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank shows it is “a policy directed from above”.

In a strategic alert published this week, the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) said: “Jewish terrorism has evolved from a local enforcement problem into a distinct strategic threat to the State of Israel and its democratic character.” It added: “The lack of a decisive Israeli response to this phenomenon constitutes evidence that it is a policy directed from above.”

Read: Israeli army leaders warn of ‘West Bank eruption’ over settler attacks

In a stark warning the authors concluded: “We warn of a threat to Israel’s very ability to govern and function. As history teaches us, democracies that fail to restrain radical forces within them do not survive.”

Citing data from Israel’s security establishment, INSS said 660 incidents of Jewish terrorism and nationalist crime were recorded in the first half of 2026. The increase marks a 63 per cent rise on the second half of 2025 and a 50 per cent rise on the same period last year.

Jewish terrorists killed six Palestinians and injured 140 in the first six months of the year, according to the INSS. The report also cites the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which records an average of six settler attacks a day causing casualties or property damage, and notes that thousands of Palestinians have been driven from herding and farming communities in Area C, which is more than 60 per cent of the West Bank and under full Israeli civil and security control.

Israeli forces have also come under attack. Assaults by settlers on soldiers and police rose by about 36 per cent to 45 incidents, including stone-throwing and the slashing of military vehicle tyres. Senior officers in Central Command are reported to have said privately that up to 80 per cent of log entries in some brigades concern Jewish terrorism.

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The report describes near-total impunity for Jewish terrorists. An analysis of law enforcement data from 2005 to 2025 found that about 94 per cent of investigations into ideologically motivated offences by Israelis in the West Bank were closed without an indictment. Only about 3 per cent ended in a conviction.

Central Command chief Major General Avi Bluth has said the violence “does not occur in a vacuum and is fueled by public support”, according to the report. Officers admitted they are “failing every day to uphold the law”.

INSS linked Jewish terrorism directly to state policy. It said settler “farms” and illegal outposts serve as a central means of dispossessing Palestinians, backed by state budgets and infrastructure, and advance the “Decisive Plan” to expel Palestinians and annex the West Bank. Restraining Jewish terrorists, it concluded, is seen as contradicting the government’s own policy.

The think tank frames Jewish terrorism mainly as a threat to Israel’s security, its army and its international standing, rather than as a violation of Palestinian rights and international law. It warns that the attacks make it harder for Israel to present its actions in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria as self-defence and raise the risk of sanctions against Israeli individuals and entities.

All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful and must end as rapidly as possible.