In the past 24 hours, Israeli and international media have been flooded with screaming headlines about a supposed “siege” Israelis are imposing on the village of Qusra. These images, echoing rapidly around the world and creating a spectacle of defamation against the State of Israel, are part of a well-oiled marketing machine.
2+The Israeli and global left have become world champions at branding. Through wokeness, they succeed time and again in turning pursuers into the pursued and the cruel into the pitiful. We saw this with the “Gaza starvation” fabrication, and now we’re seeing the exact same playbook in Judea and Samaria.
To understand what’s really happening on the ground, you need to look at the strategic process the area has undergone. After 30 years of defensive culture and containment—a legacy of the Oslo Accords in which Jews were confined inside community fences and behind concrete barriers on the roads—a transformation has occurred.
2+The fundamental change is the shifting of the “contact line.” In the past, friction occurred at the gates of Jewish communities, at bus stops, or on the margins of main roads. There, rioters and terrorists felt free to roam, attack, and terrorize. Today, the reality is different: the friction line has moved from the edges of our roads to the borders of Arab villages.
The central tool in this shift is the establishment of dozens of “isolated outposts” in open territory, in the style of the Sycamore Farm that Ariel Sharon established in the Negev in the 1990s. These outposts demonstrate Jewish presence on the ground and effectively create a security buffer or “yellow line” that distances the danger from civilians in the established Jewish communities. Similar to the operational model in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, a security zone has been created in Judea and Samaria that prevents the enemy from reaching the first line of homes.
2+It’s important to remember who we’re dealing with: most Arabs in Judea and Samaria are Hamas supporters. These are the same people who cheered the murderous massacre on October 7, and if only they were given the opportunity to recreate the horrors of Be’eri in the Jewish mountain ridge communities or in Bat Hefer—they wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.
So why does the world see a “siege”? Because the images being distributed in global media are the 2026 model of the Gaza starvation lie. This is a film they always show us from the middle, focusing only on the scene chosen by the progressive director. The camera will never show the first act: the rioters from the villages who come out to provoke the shepherds, the attempts to attack the outposts, and the daily threats to Jewish lives in the area.