Protection Now
 

A Mothers’ Manifesto for the Immediate Deployment of a Multinational Protection Force in the West Bank

 

Point 19 of United States President Donald Trump’s plan recognizes the Palestinian people’s aspirations for self-determination and statehood and calls for the creation of a “credible pathway” to realize them. Although the plan makes Palestinian statehood conditional and pushes it into an uncertain future, it nevertheless acknowledges a truth the world can no longer evade: without a political horizon for the Palestinian people, there can be no regional stability, security, or peace.

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But no pathway to Palestinian statehood can exist while the West Bank is burning, while Palestinian communities are attacked and forcibly displaced; while homes, vehicles, and mosques are set on fire; and while the army and police protect the settlement enterprise instead of the population living under occupation.

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One hundred and fifty-seven of the 193 United Nations member states- more than four-fifths of the international community already recognize the State of Palestine. Recognition cannot remain a flag displayed in the halls of the United Nations. A state has territory, and its citizens have the right to life, security, and protection.

 

Israel’s Own Security Figures Show: The West Bank Is Under a Campaign of Terror

 

These are not figures published by a left-wing organization or an international body.

These are the Israeli security establishment’s own figures.

 

In a single weekend, more than 30 incidents classified as “nationalist crime” were recorded across the West Bank, including the arson of mosques, homes, vehicles, and agricultural equipment.

During the first half of 2026, Israel’s security establishment documented 660 such incidents, compared with 405 during the second half of 2025, a 63 percent increase in only six months.

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Deliberate attacks against Israeli security forces also increased, from 30 incidents during the second half of 2025 to 45 during the first half of 2026.

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The Palestinian toll is even heavier. During the first half of 2026, six Palestinians were killed, and 140 were injured in incidents classified by the Israeli security establishment as “nationalist crime.” This compares with three Palestinians killed and 112 injured during the first half of 2025, and 82 injured during the second half of that year.

This is not a “handful of extremists.” These are not “bad apples” or “marginalized youth.” This is armed, expanding, and systematic Jewish terrorism.

 

The Laundering of Language Is Part of the Abandonment

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Israel’s security establishment does not call these acts terrorism. It chooses the minimizing and sanitized term “nationalist crime.”

Yet Israel’s own Counter-Terrorism Law defines an act of terrorism as an offense committed for political, religious, nationalist, or ideological motives, with the intention of instilling fear or coercing action, and involving a serious threat to a person’s body, liberty, property, or a place of worship.

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 When armed people invade a village to terrorize its residents; when a mosque or family home is burned in an act of “revenge”; when shepherding communities are repeatedly attacked until they are forced from their land, these acts may clearly meet the legal elements of terrorism.

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The double standard in language is not accidental. A Palestinian is immediately labeled a “terrorist,” the act is called a “terror attack,” and the person’s entire community is punished. A Jewish perpetrator becomes a “rioter,” a “hilltop youth,” or a “bad apple,” while the attack is reduced to “friction,” “retaliation,” or “nationalist crime.”

This is how the language favored by the army, the media, and large sections of the Israeli public conceals reality: an invasion of a Palestinian village is called a “hike”; armed Jewish Israelis are called “settlers”; a settlement built on Palestinian land is called a “farm”; the forced displacement of a community becomes “voluntary departure”; and Jewish terrorism is called “nationalist crime.”

 

Changing terminology does not change reality. This is terrorism.

 

The Army Can No Longer Be Trusted to Protect Palestinians

 

Testimonies from within the military and the reality on the ground reveal a command structure subordinated to a political and messianic agenda of annexation, settlement expansion, and dispossession.

This is no longer merely the case of one commander acting outside the law. When the settler agenda penetrates the chain of command; when military units are staffed by settlers serving in and around their own communities; when settlement security coordinators and outpost leaders direct soldiers on the ground; and when the army punishes Palestinians after settlers have attacked them- this is a system.

 

Instead of arresting those who invade Palestinian villages, the army closes the villages. Instead of removing the attackers, it removes human rights defenders. Instead of protecting a family whose home has been burned, it erects checkpoints, imposes curfews, and carries out arrests among Palestinians.

 

Palestinians live under continuous terror. Israeli soldiers are exposed to orders and missions that violate both law and morality. Israeli and international human rights defenders are abandoned to political violence without protection.

 

And whenever settlers manufacture confrontation, the army diverts forces to extinguish the fire they ignited. Major Yuval Ezra was killed after being sent to an area where Israelis had entered Palestinian territory without coordination. Before him, Gur Kehati was sacrificed in Lebanon while accompanying a civilian ideological venture for which no operational necessity was established.

 

Gur was the first. Yuval was the second. The third could be the son or daughter of any one of us.

 

We Have Lost Trust

 

We, Jewish and Arab mothers and citizens of Israel, say this clearly:

 We have lost trust in Israel’s political system and in the military’s ability or willingness to protect the Palestinian population in the occupied territories.

 

The army in the West Bank is not a neutral force. It is the force maintaining occupation, protecting settlements, and enabling their expansion. Its weakness in the face of a messianic political system-and, in many cases, its cooperation with that system-leaves us no choice but to appeal directly to the world.

 

When the occupying power fails to protect the population under its control, moral and political responsibility falls upon the international community.

 

Deploying a Multinational Protection Force Now

 

We call upon the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, Arab states, and every country that recognizes the State of Palestine:

 

Immediately deploy a multinational force in the West Bank with a clear mandate to protect the civilian population.

 

No more delegations arriving after people have been killed. No more statements of condemnation after a mosque has been burned. No more reports documenting communities only after they have already been expelled from their land.

 

We demand a permanent presence on the ground that will protect threatened communities; guarantee access to water, grazing land, schools, and medical care; accompany women, children, shepherds, and human rights defenders; document attacks in real time; and stand as a protective barrier between the Palestinian population and the settlers and forces enabling their violence.

 

The principle of a multinational force in this region has already been accepted. President Trump’s plan, endorsed by the UN Security Council, established an International Stabilization Force for Gaza, and in July 2026 Israel authorized its entry. If an international force can be deployed to stabilize Gaza, then one can-and must-be deployed to the West Bank with a civilian protection mandate.

 

Until such a force is established, governments must immediately send permanent diplomatic protection teams and observers to Palestinian communities at risk of attack and forced displacement. Protection cannot wait for a political process that may take months or years. People are being attacked now.

 

Not Revenge-Life

 

Our call is not a call for revenge, nor is it an invitation to another war. It is a call to save lives-a call for protection, recognition, and reconciliation.

 

The mothers’ vision is a vision of shared life, equality, and justice; a vision of ending the occupation and fully recognizing the State of Palestine; a vision in which the security of an Israeli mother is not built upon the abandonment of a Palestinian mother, and children no longer pay the price of a violent political project.

 

We, Jewish and Arab mothers and citizens of Israel, stand with Palestinian women and mothers in the West Bank, the occupied Palestinian territory, and the State of Palestine.

 

The world cannot claim that it did not know. The figures are public, the images have been documented, and the communities are calling for help. Silence is no longer neutrality. Silence is abandonment.

 

This is the moment by which the world will be judged.

Responsibility carries a price, but the price of refusing to intervene is far greater.

 

Multinational protection for Palestinians now.

 

We ask for your signature, your voice, and your support.

 

Sign. Share. Demand that your government acts immediately.

 

Mothers Against Violence