WhatsappStop Letting the Media Tell You Who the Hilltop Youth Are
For years, Jews in Israel and around the world have been taught to view the hilltop farms and their young residents through a single distorted lens: extremists, troublemakers, vigilantes.
Just over the past few days, I had the privilege of speaking to nearly 300 American Jewish teenagers visiting Israel in different groups. The question I was asked more than any other was not, “How can Israel stop the daily jihadist terror?” It was not, “What is it like to raise a family while families in the Arab cities/villages near you educate their little children to kill you with internationally funded textbooks and television programs?” It was not, “Why do Jews choose to live there despite the danger?”
Instead, over and over again, they asked about “settler violence.”
Think about that.
That is the narrative Jews and Israelis are fed by our own media.
Before they ever meet the pioneers living on these hilltop farms, before they hear what daily life is actually like, before they learn about the constant terrorist attacks, attempted infiltrations, arson, agricultural theft, rock-throwing, and shootings they endure, they have already been conditioned to see fellow Jews as the problem.
That distortion is not accidental. It is the product of years of one-sided reporting that strips away the essential context and leaves an entire generation with a profoundly false understanding of reality.
Even more troubling is how some Jews seem to take pride in publicly condemning their fellow Jewish settlers. I recently had the father of a journalist at a Jewish publication proudly tell me that his son had written a “scathing report on the settler youth.”
Taken aback by his pride, I replied, “I’m sorry, but your son’s reporting is missing the context necessary to report this issue honestly.”
He clearly wasn’t expecting to hear that, being used to being around fellow Jews who applaud articles that demonize settlers without presenting the reality they live every day. He quickly ended the conversation and walked away.
That image has been repeated so often that many people accept it as fact without ever asking a simple question:
What is daily life actually like for the Jews living there?
This week, District Court Judge Ron Solkin offered an answer that deserves to be read by every Jew & Israeli.
In rejecting an appeal by the prosecution against a resident of one of these farms, he did something that is almost unheard of in our legal system. He acknowledged the reality that the media almost never reports.
The judge described the constant terrorist attacks on the roads. The attempted infiltrations into communities. The agricultural theft. The attacks on our teenage, unarmed Shepard’s out grazing. The arson. The harassment. The reality that a wrong turn can lead to a lynching. That waiting at a bus stop can end in murder. That an ordinary drive home can end with terrorists hurling massive rocks through your windshield.
Then he wrote words that should echo throughout the Jewish world.
People living under these conditions cannot be judged “under laboratory conditions, beneath an air conditioner and fluorescent lights.”
Exactly.
For too long, Jews and Israelis have been encouraged to judge the hilltop farms without ever understanding the battlefield they live on.
It is easy to criticize from Tel Aviv, Herzliya, New York or London.
It is much harder to imagine living as a teenager or raising your children where every day requires vigilance, determination, and courage, not simply to live a normal life, but to defend the Land of Israel by preventing illegal jihadist encroachment that, as left unchecked by the government and IDF for decades, poses a strategic threat to the entire nation.
This does not mean every action by every individual is automatically justified. No community is beyond criticism, and everyone remains accountable under the law.
But context matters.
Justice demands context.
Truth demands context.
The tragedy is that the context is almost always omitted.
When cameras arrive after an incident, they rarely show the months of harassment and jihadi terror that preceded it. They do not report the attempted infiltrations, the stolen livestock, the burned fields, the rocks thrown at Shepard or families, or the constant security threats that have become part of everyday life. That is never reported in the media.
Instead, viewers are often shown a snapshot stripped of the reality surrounding it.
That incomplete picture shapes public opinion.
It shapes political discourse.
And it shapes how an entire generation of pioneering Jews is judged.
The hilltop farms are not merely isolated homes on remote ridges. In the eyes of many who live there, they represent a continuation of the Zionist pioneering spirit that has always secured Israel’s frontiers by establishing communities in strategic areas.
Before and after 1948, no one questioned why pioneers established communities like Metula and Tel Hai in the north or Be’eri, Nachal Oz and Yad Mordechai in the south. They understood that settling strategic areas was itself an essential part of defending the nation.
Whether or not one agrees with every policy connected to those communities, it is impossible to understand them honestly without first understanding the security reality they face.
Our national conversation must be built on truth, not on the ideological agenda of an editorial board.
If we genuinely seek justice, we must be willing to hear voices that challenge the narratives we have been fed.
Judge Solkin reminded us that facts matter.
Reality matters.
Context matters.
Perhaps it is time the rest of the Jewish people begins paying attention.
Because the easiest thing in the world is to condemn people you do not know.
The harder and more important task is to understand what they endure before rushing to judgment.
That is not weakness.
That is justice.
These hilltop you and outpost farmers are modern Jewish heroes.
Am Yisrael Chai!!!
