Government to provide 50-shekel daily stipends for hundreds of hilltop youth – report

NIS 5.5 million ($1.9m) said designated for settler minors, amid effort ostensibly aimed at addressing violent daily attacks against Palestinians by residents of West Bank outposts

The government intends to provide hundreds of young settlers in the West Bank a budget of NIS 50 ($17) a day each to cover food and clothes, as part of a government program that is ostensibly meant to prevent violence against local Palestinians, the Ynet news site reported on Monday.

The outlet cited a document from the Ministry of Settlement and National Missions, led by far-right Religious Zionism MK Orit Strock, which it said plans to transfer the funds to regional councils, which will in turn provide them to the teenage recipients.

The ministry has identified 657 recipients, who are spread out on hilltops and farming outposts across the West Bank, according to the report. Of them, 225 are located in the Binyamin region, 129 in Samaria, 120 in the Jordan Valley, 99 in the Hebron area, and 84 in Gush Etzion.

According to the document, the funds are intended to last some seven months, until the end of the calendar year, at a total cost of some NIS 5.5 million ($1.9m). The report said these funds will also be distributed via food stamps, to cover basic necessities.

According to the report, these funds are part of a much larger program, costing some NIS 120 million ($41.3m), to address by educational means the phenomenon of runaway violence against Palestinians by extremist settlers, who have been carrying out violent attacks on a near-daily basis in recent years, with almost total impunity.

The larger program includes funds for social workers, and for go-betweens to mediate between hilltop youth and local authorities, according to Ynet. The report said the Defense Ministry and Education Ministry are also funding a program to encourage conscription, and that the Labor Ministry is funding a program to integrate wayward youths into the workforce.

Opposition MK Vladimir Beliak, of the Yesh Atid party, has asked Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to examine the funds, to see whether they are in alignment with principles of equality, operate according to substantive and transparent criteria, and are justified in supporting this particular community and not other at-risk youths, in particular so close to elections, Ynet reported.

Government sources, meanwhile, told Ynet that the educational push is not meant to replace, but rather to supplement, enforcement efforts.

“The goal is an envelope of welfare and education for them, in order to protect this enterprise and prevent its slipping into violence,” they said. “This program is not meant for the hard core of violent youths, who must be dealt with on the criminal level.”

At the same time, they stressed their support for the outposts in general, telling the news site: “In this government, the premier and ministers understand the importance of the hilltops and the farms in protecting security and preventing Palestinian takeovers of territory.”

Extremist settlers, sometimes in mobs, have been recorded on a near-daily basis carrying out a variety of violent attacks, including assaulting Palestinians, torching cars, and damaging property.

Arrests in such cases are rare, and convictions are even less common, and the IDF has also faced criticism for often standing by while attacks unfold — with troops sometimes actively participating — or failing to prosecute those responsible.

In contrast, the IDF frequently arrests Palestinians who are involved in the violent confrontations with their settler attackers.