‘The system emboldens the most violent extremists’

By trying to protect areas vulnerable to settler violence and working alongside Palestinian partners, Jewish American activist Elly Oltersdorf has become an expert on Israel’s controversial policies in the occupied West Bank.

She has witnessed first-hand what human rights groups describe as a stepped-up effort by settlers and the IDF to dispossess Palestinians.

Oltersdorf, who works as outreach director of Achvat Amim (Solidarity of Nations), says Israel is at its worst period of settler and army violence in the West Bank since Oltersdorf became involved in the area’s affairs six years ago.

"100 percent, there is no question about this and statistically the answer is yes, it’s the worst. The organisations that document the violence have seen it peak and what they have is probably an undercount,” she said.

Oltersdorf, a 30-year-old native of California, first became an activist as a university student. She has since increased her social change campaigning, recently visiting Sydney to warn of the urgent need for solidarity with threatened Palestinian communities in the West Bank.

Oltersdorf was hosted by Sydney Friends of Standing Together, a growing movement of Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel working for peace, equality, security, and justice for all in Israel-Palestine.

Oltersdorf says the West Bank crisis is worsening. Last week, Bezalel Smotrich, a key minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist coalition, boasted of “burying” any chance of a Palestinian state through new illegal settlement construction that will bisect the West Bank.