'Monstrous': Netanyahu Casts Doubt on Filmed Israeli Settler Attack of American Journalist

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced blistering criticism Friday after his office published a statement casting doubt on the circumstances surrounding a brutal attack earlier in the day by settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank that left an American journalist hospitalized.

"The facts surrounding the confrontation near Abu Falah, during which Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was allegedly assaulted, remain unclear and are under investigation," Netanyahu's office said on social media.

As Common Dreams reported, Levine—a 63-year-old Jewish American by birth who has reported from war zones including Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, and Syria—was covering Palestinian farmers desperately trying to harvest their olives when around 80 masked settler colonists descended upon them.

Armed with rocks, clubs, sticks, assault rifles, and the self-assured belief that their deity figure promised them all the land that was once ruled by Jewish kings millennia ago, the settlers set fire to the olive trees that are the backbone of Palestine's rural economy and a literal symbol of Palestinians' rootedness in their homeland.

The assailants fired guns and threw rocks at the olive harvesters, reportedly wounding at least two Palestinians. While documenting the attack, Levine—who, like other journalists killed or wounded by Israel, was clad in a helmet and a blue vest clearly marked "PRESS"—was set upon by settlers, knocked to the ground, and kicked dozens of times while her equipment was stolen.

"Israel unequivocally condemns violence against anyone—Jews, Arabs, Christians, or journalists," Netanyahu's office claimed. "Those responsible will be held accountable."

"But serious questions remain," the statement continued. "Reports indicate some 200 Arabs and far-left activists confronted approximately 40 Israeli youths. Footage shows masked individuals on both sides hurling objects, amid reports of fireworks fired at Jewish youths. Other footage appears to show Levine knocked down and immediately helped to her feet by the same unidentified individual."

"The investigation must establish the facts, including who initiated the violence," the office added. "We will not allow disputed incidents to be exploited to demonize the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Jewish residents."

The colonization of the occupied Palestinian territories by Jewish settlers—many of them non-Israelis who are availing themselves of the ethnosupremacist and apartheid policy of allowing any Jew to live in a land whose Palestinian inhabitants have been ethnically cleansed from it for nearly 80 years—is inherently illegal under international law.

Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray pushed back on Netanyahu's statement on social media, saying: "To be clear: Some facts are neither in dispute nor unclear. Our photographer was clearly marked as press. She was clearly beaten. These are not partisan or risible statements, but indisputable. We urge a thorough investigation and accountability."

International observers also criticized Netanyahu's statement.

"They are actually trying to justify an American WaPo journalist being severely beaten by a mob of settler terrorists," US commentator Krystal Ball said on social media, using the syllabic abbreviation for the Post.

Irish journalist Barry Malone responded to Netanyahu's post on X, saying: "Hi. There's video. It's clear."

US physician Amira Dalton said, "Israel lies and then calls you an antisemite for calling out their lies."

The X account Israel Exposed, which has more than 400,000 followers, sardonically asked, "You mean the footage of the Israeli terrorists beating her up isn't clear enough?"

The Israeli veterans' group Breaking the Silence said that "you can see the settlers who attacked Heidi Levine, a journalist for The Washington Post. But what you can’t see is the state behind them: a state that funds them, arms them, and, above all, grants them near-total impunity for their actions. This violence does not happen in a vacuum. Israel enables it."

While Lt. Col. Ariella Mazor, chief international spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, claimed the military had sent battalions to the West Bank to contain the outbreak of violence, eyewitnesses said the IDF was involved in the attack on Abu Falah.

“The army did nothing to stop the settlers," Israeli journalist Oren Ziv, who was present during the attack, told The Washington Post.

That's because Israel's far-right government is unapologetically seeking to "finish the job of 1948," as Netanyahu once put it—a reference to the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of the modern Israeli state—and take all of Palestine.

"The entire land is ours," Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said earlier this month, in the lead-up to Israel's October 27 elections."This is our country."

Last month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed to do in the West Bank "what we did in Gaza," where three years of genocidal annihilation have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, nearly 2 million people forcibly displaced, and an estimated 70% of the territory under Israeli control.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at least 1,138 Palestinians—at least 250 of them children—have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since October 2023.

At least nine Americans have been killed by Israeli settlers and security forces in the West Bank since January 2022, including journalists, human rights activists, and Palestinian Americans visiting relatives.

Despite claims by Israel that perpetrators of such attacks will be held accountable, impunity is the general rule.

“Sadly, none of them will be prosecuted,” Levine said of her attackers. “I am sure of it.”

Multiple US senators demanded that Israel bring Levin's assailants to justice.

"The continued lack of accountability for settler violence in the West Bank has allowed attacks on innocent people, including multiple Americans, to go unanswered, and it is eroding what should be a strong alliance between the US and Israel," Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) said on social media. "Prime Minister Netanyahu isn't doing nearly enough to stop the violence."

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) also took to social media after Friday's attack, writing, "Today, another American citizen and journalist was brutalized by Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank."

"This repeated violence and brazen impunity for attacks against Americans and Palestinians alike are unacceptable," he added. "When will [President Donald] Trump and [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio DO SOMETHING?"