A group of religious Jewish youths recently appeared on a Galilean hillside near the Israeli Arab town of Majd al-Krum. Protesters quickly described them as West Bank settlers establishing an illegal outpost as part of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s campaign to “do in the Galilee what we are doing in Judea and Samaria.”

The facts are considerably different.

Part of the property lies within Majd al-Krum’s municipal boundaries but belongs to the Jewish National Fund. It is surrounded by privately owned Arab agricultural land. In January 2026, JNF granted seasonal grazing rights over approximately 1,050 dunams to Gabi Damari, a livestock farmer from Tal-El, a Jewish community in the Galilee. The purpose was to reduce vegetation and the risk of fires. That authorization came roughly seven months before Smotrich announced his Galilee initiative, and no evidence has emerged that Smotrich sent Damari or the young men.

Damari said he brought youths from Judea and Samaria to guard equipment following thefts while his goats were delayed from arriving on the land by veterinary restrictions. Nothing reported thus far establishes that the young men were moving permanently to the Galilee or creating a residential community. They were living at a grazing site operated by a local farmer under a preexisting JNF authorization. (Ynet)

That did not make everything at the site proper. The camp included large tents, beds, utilities and equipment, some of which reportedly extended onto private land. Those were legitimate grounds for investigation and enforcement. JNF ultimately ordered excess structures removed, restricted the size and location of any shelter and limited how many people could remain. It did not cancel Damari’s grazing rights.

The protest, however, was not confined to property lines or permit conditions. Majd al-Krum’s council warned that the encampment was intended to change the area’s “demographic reality.” Hadash figures called it “land seizure” and “creeping transfer.” Sujood Badran, a local political activist arrested during the demonstrations, later recounted protesters chanting: “Arab land belongs to Arabs. Zionist, get up and leave.” She also described the area as “occupied Palestine.” (Times of Israel, Israel Hayom)

Haviva Ner-David offered the liberal Jewish version of the same exclusion. She praised the Galilee as a shared society “balanced 50-50” between Hebrew and Arabic speakers, including Muslims, Jews, Druze and Christians. Yet she said these particular Jews had come from outside to “ruin that,” pledged to protest “until they are truly gone” and promised that if they tried another Galilean hilltop, “we will go there, too.” (Ner-David’s post)

She proudly carried a protest flag bearing a dove and olive branch, presenting it as a symbol of Arab-Jewish partnership. Yet the flag identifies Majd al-Krum only in Arabic. There is no Hebrew and nothing representing the supposedly Jewish half of that partnership.

The protestors seemingly were taking a page from the Arab League that also protests new Jewish homes inside Israel. And the JNF has taken note, ordering the Jews to leave the area.

The legal standard should be straightforward. Private property must be respected. Grazing permits do not authorize unlimited construction. Theft, intimidation and racism should be punished whether committed by Jews, Muslims, Christians or Druze. None of those principles makes a person’s birthplace, religious appearance or previous residence grounds for expulsion.

Jews living in the West Bank are routinely denounced as obstacles to peace and told to move inside Israel. Now, when Jews associated with those communities appear inside Israel, they remain “settlers,” their presence becomes a demographic threat and self-described coexistence activists organize to make them disappear.

Coexistence that ends when the perceived wrong kind of Jews arrive is not coexistence. It is demographic exclusion in dove’s clothing.

ACTION ITEM

Contact the JNF at jewishnationalfund@jnf.org to make sure that they are not expelling Jews from Israel, but simply keeping grazing land for its intended purposes.