Over the past three years, media and global attention have increasingly focused on the ethnic cleansing taking place in the West Bank, following a surge in pogroms and raids on Palestinian villages involving large numbers of far-right Israeli activists. But the ethnic cleansing is also being carried out through other means — including tactics reminiscent of Ku Klux Klan-style terror in the American South during the first half of the 20th century.

These include repeated acts of terror targeting Palestinian businesses, aimed at instilling fear and undermining their economic survival, ultimately pressuring them to "leave voluntarily". Like American law enforcement authorities at that time, Israeli security forces grant perpetrators impunity, and in many cases, actively or indirectly assist them.

M’s story is just one of many. He is married, a father of young children, and the owner of a plant nursery located near one of the main roads in the West Bank. Since November 2020, his nursery has been targeted in seven separate nightly terror attacks. In each incident, members of the “hilltop youth” broke into the nursery, smashed and destroyed goods and infrastructure, and stole anything they could load into their vehicle.

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M installed security cameras in the nursery, so all the incidents were recorded — including clear images of the perpetrators and their vehicle. In addition, the main road adjacent to the nursery is covered by surveillance cameras of the police and military, allowing for identification of the vehicle’s route to and from the scene. After each attack, M — together with us at Tag Meir Forum, who accompany him and other Palestinian victims of terror — was forced to chase after the police to get them to send forensic team to the nursery to collect fingerprints and other physical evidence left behind by the perpetrators, as well as to retrieve footage from both the nursery's cameras and those monitoring the main road.

M discovered that the vehicle used in the attacks was being driven around and inside a nearby settlement, and that some of the stolen plants from his nursery had been replanted at the settlement’s entrance to beautify it — without even removing the original nursery tags. Requests to the army and police to detain the vehicle and its owner, and to allow M to retrieve the identified stolen plants, were dismissed with the standard response that the matter is still “under investigation”.

A fifth terror attack took place at the nursery. Once again, members of the "hilltop youth" arrived in a vehicle. This time, when M spotted them on the security camera he monitors from his home, he got into his car and drove to the nursery. After they finished causing damage and loading stolen plants into their vehicle, they tried to flee — but just then, M arrived with his car, and the vehicles collided. The three perpetrators got out of their vehicle, and M chased after them on foot toward the entrance of a nearby settlement. Since M knew the settlement’s security officer, he called him, and the officer waited at the entrance and apprehended the perpetrators until the police arrived.

In other words, after the police failed to do their job, M was forced to take the risk and apprehend the perpetrators himself.

The reason behind this failure was revealed by chance in an interview given to journalist Elisha Ben-Kimon by a settler who crossed the lines to become a Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) agent. According to him, the vehicle used in the terror attacks on the nursery was purchased with funds from the Shin Bet, as part of his infiltration into a "hilltop youth" group. He claimed to have personally participated in at least one of the attacks and even knew that it had been recorded by the security camera. In response to the interview, the Shin Bet neither denied the allegations nor condemned the methods used. When we demanded an investigation into the Shin Bet officials responsible for the case, the State Prosecution responded that the agency had not been aware of the attacks at the nursery in advance — a dubious claim, given that a complaint was filed after each attack.

But M’s troubles did not end there. In May 2021, after an Israeli citizen was shot to death in the area, and despite the road being monitored by military and police cameras, soldiers and a Shin Bet agent decided to confiscate the security cameras at M’s nursery. Instead of contacting M, who was already well known to them due to his previous complaints, they cut in half the metal entrance door of the nursery’s main building. As a result, M was left without security cameras and without a door. He had to replace both at his own expense.

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In December 2022 — just weeks after the far right achieved an unprecedented electoral victory — a group of “hilltop youth” arrived at the nursery and carried out a sixth terror attack. This time, they broke a hole in the wall of the main building using a hammer and entered through it. They stole the computer connected to the security cameras, along with other property (including cigarettes and more), and set the building and its contents on fire from the inside. They also attempted to insert a gas canister into the building through the hole in the wall; the canister got stuck in the wall, and — by a miracle — did not explode. The police announced that they would conduct a thorough investigation, but despite the security cameras footage and the severity of the attack, no one has been arrested to date. Once again, M had to replace everything at his own expense.

Of all the “hilltop youth” involved in the six terror attacks on the nursery, only one – caught by M himself during the fifth attack – was prosecuted and convicted. The legal proceedings lasted about four years and concluded only in March 2025. He was sentenced to one month of community service and ordered to pay in compensation a tiny fraction of the total damage caused.

Since M is Palestinian, it took five months for a unit in the Ministry of Justice to obtain all the necessary approvals to transfer the compensation into his bank account in the West Bank. M believed that by receiving the compensation, he had closed this chapter of his life – but he was mistaken.

In the early hours of Friday night, September 5, 2025, a group of “hilltop youth” once again arrived at the nursery by vehicle. They broke the fence, destroyed plants and pots and cut electrical connections. Once again, M and we must ensure that the police fulfil their duty – collecting the footage and attempting to identify the perpetrators.

As long as M refuses to “leave voluntarily”, he will continue to be a target of terror by the Israeli KKK.

Attorney Eitay Mack, together with Tag Meir Forum, supports Palestinian victims of terror and racism.

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