The National Interest Foundation Newsletter
Issue 307, October 24, 2025
Welcome to our NIF Newsletter. In this week’s edition, we examine some of the latest Israeli settler violence which has seen them rampage through West Bank villages burning homes, cars, and harvests, while also delving into a recent survey conducted by Upswing Research & Strategy that found near-unanimous opposition to unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel.
Editor: Bassam Tarbush
Israeli Settlers Rampage Through West Bank Villages Burning Homes, Cars, and Harvests
Armed Israeli settlers have rampaged through villages in the occupied West Bank, carrying out physical assaults against Palestinian farmers during the ongoing olive harvest season, stealing crops, blocking access to groves, and burning homes and vehicles. The violence included a heinous attack on a Palestinian woman which was captured on video by American journalist Jasper Nathaniel showing a masked Israeli settler savagely clubbing the victim over the head and beating her repeatedly as she laid unconscious. In addition to footage of the crime, Nathaniel also recounted how Israeli forces lured himself and others into the ambush by armed settlers, with the soldiers departing the scene just before the settlers launched the violent assault. Regrettably, this does not come as a surprise to many given that activists have documented that attacks like these have been carried out and gone unpunished for years – and that perpetrators of these crimes have clearly been further emboldened by Israeli forces’ protection and at times even active participation in them. As human rights monitors have sought to draw attention to, state-sponsored violence and attacks like these are aimed at intimidating native Palestinians and seeking to expel them from their land to make way for more unlawful Israeli land seizures and settlements.
Olive harvesting season for Palestinians in the West Bank has always been one of the main targets of routine Israeli settler violence and attacks. This is because – as observers have pointed out – it provides undeniable evidence of local Palestinian residents’ indigenous ties to the land, and as such, illegal settlers have been keen to try and destroy these links. The olive harvest is more than an important economic event, as it also represents a vital cultural and social symbol of Palestinian connection to the land and endurance under occupation. For these reasons, Palestinian olive farmers are subjected to violence, theft, harassment, and property destruction year after year at the hands of illegal settlers and their enablers. During the harvest season last year in 2024, human rights groups documented at least 113 separate incidents of these involving Israeli settlers and soldiers. While the olive harvest season has always witnessed Israeli settler violence and attacks, the escalation in recent years is incredibly alarming. The role that Israeli forces play in encouraging, protecting, and taking part in these crimes has been chronicled as well. In the overwhelming majority of these cases, Israeli forces were present and either prevented Palestinians from accessing and harvesting their land or failed to stop settlers who harassed and assaulted them.
The latest Israeli settler violence is part of a disturbing uptick in this and other human rights violations in the occupied West Bank over the past two years while most of the international community’s focus has been fixated on Gaza. Reports from entities like the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) have shown that Israeli settler attacks this year in 2025 are on track to be the highest ever recorded since they began collecting this data almost 20 years ago. The troubling increase has seen Israeli settlers regularly damage, set fire to, and destroy Palestinian homes, infrastructure, vehicles, and other property such as agricultural equipment used by farmers. These daily assaults across the occupied West Bank – protected and often backed by Israeli forces – constitute a government-endorsed effort to further unlawfully seize Palestinian land, expand illegal settlements, and intimidate local communities into leaving. It is the blatant climate of impunity and enabling, in conjunction with attention being diverted elsewhere, that has allowed this violence to skyrocket and emboldens repeated criminal behavior.
Rights groups have highlighted how Israeli authorities are exploiting and purposely using the focus on what has been taking place in Gaza as a means to commit egregious violations in the occupied West Bank – hoping that these will fly under the radar. Thus, to counter this, it is of the utmost importance that activists continue to draw attention to these crimes and pressure foreign governments to impose sanctions, suspend arms transfers, and ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements. Impactful mechanisms are needed in order to uphold standards of international law and ensure accountability in the face of glaring violations. In the absence of punitive measures, transgressions like these will only worsen.
Upswing Research & Strategy Survey Finds Near-Unanimous Opposition to Unconditional U.S. Military Aid to Israel
A recent survey by Upswing Research & Strategy shed light on the near-unanimous opposition to unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel, in addition to other noteworthy findings of American public opinion towards issues related to Israel and Palestine. The poll was conducted last month in September among 850 Democratic primary voters nationwide and aimed to uncover viewpoints on a host of pertinent subjects, with a particular focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Democratic Party’s top priorities. Some of the study’s key findings included: 1) the aforementioned strong opposition to unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel, 2) support for categorizing military aid as defensive or offensive, 3) high levels of support for requiring countries (such as Israel) to meet basic human rights standards in order to receive U.S. foreign aid, 4) deeply unfavorable views towards Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, 5) overwhelmingly favorable views towards Palestine, the United Nations, and humanitarian organizations, 6) a plurality of voters sympathizing more with Palestinians than Israelis, 7) a majority belief that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and 8) a majority belief that Israel has murdered journalists in Gaza to suppress negative reporting.
One of the survey’s most significant findings was that unconditional military aid to Israel was opposed by close to all respondents. Only 8% expressed a belief that the United States should continue to send Israel unconditional military aid, while 86% contended that the U.S. should either stop sending aid altogether or at least halt offensive weaponry. The plurality of the poll’s respondents to this question – just a few percentage points short of 50% at 46% – relayed strong opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza. This prompted them to support the notion of stopping U.S. aid entirely in light of Israel’s egregious human rights violations. The findings are consistent with numerous polls since the onset of the Gaza War back in October 2023 which demonstrate a clear increase in opposition among the American public regarding unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel.
The Upswing Research & Strategy poll also uncovered highly unfavorable ratings for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, and Israel. Netanyahu’s unfavorable ratings were particularly high at 74%, with a miniscule favorable rating of only 6%. AIPAC was viewed unfavorably by a margin of 24% (40% to 16%), Israel by 23% (50% to 27%), and the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. by 38% (52% to 14%). On the flip side, 60% of respondents viewed Palestine favorably compared to only 13% who did not – a wide margin of 47%. The United Nations had extremely high favorability numbers as well – a 66% gap of 73% to 7%, while the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders was viewed favorably by nearly all respondents at a split of 82% favorable to just 3% unfavorable. The universally criticized humanitarian crisis in Gaza is certainly one of the major factors that has resulted in all of the respective favorable and unfavorable ratings being at the levels that they currently sit at.
Another notable survey finding was that a plurality of respondents – at a total figure of 47% – sympathized mostly with Palestinians over Israelis, while a slightly smaller percentage of 43% expressed that they have equal sympathy for both. Most telling, however, was the fact that only an incredibly small portion of 5% conveyed that most of their sympathy lied with Israelis. The 42% gap between the “mostly for the Palestinians” percentage compared to the “mostly for the Israelis” percentage is substantial and shows the extent to which Israel’s widely condemned actions in Gaza have altered perceptions towards Palestinians and Israelis, respectively. In addition to this huge margin, it is also revealing that the “mostly for the Palestinians” figure even surpasses that of the one for “equal sympathy” – further demonstrating the immense level of outrage at Israel’s War on Gaza and the sense of injustice regarding the state of affairs surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Finally, it was uplifting to see that most survey respondents acknowledged Israel’s murdering of journalists in Gaza for what it clearly was: a blatant attempt to suppress truthful reporting regarding the heinous Israeli war crimes and human rights violations taking place on the ground there. In doing so, an overwhelming majority of the voters polled rejected the long debunked Israeli government claim that the journalists were tied to Hamas and that the group uses Palestinians as “human shields.” 60% of respondents conveyed their belief that Israel murdered journalists in Gaza because they do not want the world to see reporting about their actions in Gaza, compared to only 15% who subscribed to the aforementioned refuted Israeli propaganda. Israel’s unprecedented killing of journalists in Gaza, in conjunction with its refusal to allow foreign reporters to have independent access to document what is transpiring in the Palestinian territory, has exposed the Israeli government’s deliberate efforts to censor coverage of its crimes there – something that is clearly reflected in the Upswing Research & Strategy poll’s results on the issue of the killing of journalists in Gaza.
