U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Wednesday called Israeli settler violence in the West Bank an “act of terror,” condemning their actions.
Page A2From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 6 September 2026
Washington calls West Bank violence 'terror,' the softest word anyone's used for it since August.
As it ran on the front
On August 29th, masked men attacked a Palestinian woman and an NBC crew filming her in Jalud. The next day, Prime Minister Netanyahu called the attackers "rioters," a word for people who break windows. That same week, retired Israeli generals were touring the West Bank, and on August 31st they went further than their own government: "ethnic cleansing," they said, watching what settlers had done to Palestinian livelihoods up close. On September 3rd, Amnesty International put a number on it — at least 15 land confiscation orders in July alone, roughly 20 hectares, part of what they called Israel's "annexation agenda." Six days after Netanyahu's "rioters," on September 5th, the U.S. ambassador to Israel arrived in Turmusayya and said the word his own government had been avoiding: "act of terror."
Line them up and you have a government's vocabulary getting more serious by the week while its government's actions do not move at all. Netanyahu's word was the softest. The generals' word was the harshest anyone in a position of former authority has used. Amnesty's word came with a number attached — 20 hectares, July alone. Huckabee's word landed six days later, milder than "ethnic cleansing," milder than "annexation," but stronger than anything Washington had said out loud. He met with about ten Palestinian American residents in Turmusayya who described what had happened to their homes. He used the word "terror." Nobody announced a sanction. Nobody rescinded a confiscation order. Nobody's aid package changed by a dollar.…
…(cont) The generals didn't call for cleansing to stop; they called it cleansing. Amnesty didn't seize land back; it counted the land already seized. The ambassador didn't threaten anything; he condemned. Each word is heavier than the last, and each one arrives with the same attachment: none. The confiscation orders Amnesty counted in July did not pause while the generals toured, did not pause while Amnesty published, did not pause while Huckabee sat with the families of people who lost their homes to exactly the violence he was condemning.
Ask what changes when the word changes from "rioters" to "terror" to "ethnic cleansing" to "annexation," and the honest answer is nothing you could point to on a map. The land confiscation continues at the same pace it was confiscated in July. The masked men who attacked the NBC crew and the woman they were interviewing have not, as far as any of these four statements records, been charged with anything. What you get instead is a rhetorical ladder — rioters, terror, ethnic cleansing, annexation — climbed in six days by men who control militaries, embassies, and reports, none of whom used the ladder to climb down and stop anything. The vocabulary escalates because vocabulary is free. The bulldozers are not on that budget line, and nobody's proposing they should be.
“Watch the order: soft word from the government that owns the soldiers, harsh word from the guys with nothing left to lose but a pension, harshest word from the charity that just does math on hectares, and now our own ambassador shows up with a word in between — and not one of the four men holding a checkbook opens it. That's the tell, not the vocabulary: the harder the word, the further it is from anybody's budget. Twenty hectares a month say the land keeps moving no matter which one of them is talking that week.”
“"Terror" is a strong word, and Ambassador Huckabee didn't have to use it. Say what you want about the timing, the man met with families in Turmusayya, he heard them out, that's more engagement than— did I just call ten residents "families"? Scratch that, ten residents, and engagement is engagement, a confiscation order is under review somewhere, probably.”
The receipts
Amnesty International said Thursday that the far-right Israeli government's recent flurry of land confiscation orders in the illegally occupied West Bank "deepens Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise and further undermines the rights of Palestinians," who are facing an increasingly destructive and deadly wave of settler violence. The…
‘Crime is crime, terror is terror’
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee met with about 10 Palestinian American residents who described the impact of the violence on their lives and properties.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee again denounced violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank, describing their attacks against Palestinians as acts of “terror.” Huckabee has previously spoken out against settler violence, including after Israeli settlers attacked a home in the West Bank village of Qusra that was owned by an American…
· 'This Is Ethnic Cleansing': Retired Israeli Generals Decry Settler Terrorism Against West Bank Palestinians from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
· 'Horrific': Masked Israeli Settlers Attack, Injure Palestinian Woman and NBC Crew from the morgue, 30 Aug 2026
· Palestinian woman and NBC News team attacked by masked Israeli settlers from the morgue, 29 Aug 2026
· 3 NBC journalists, Palestinian woman attacked by Israeli settlers in West Bank from the morgue, 30 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.