How Israeli settlers are able to seize Palestinian land with impunity in the West Bank

This picture taken from Nablus on March 23, 2025 shows southeast of the city the new expansion of the Israeli settlement outpost of Itamar, on the hill overlooking the village of Beit Furik in the occupied West Bank. (AFP)
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Updated 15 April 2025
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How Israeli settlers are able to seize Palestinian land with impunity in the West Bank

  • Israeli settlers and IDF soldiers are increasingly acting together, blurring the lines between military force and mob violence
  • Palestinians face growing displacement, home demolitions, and intimidation under punitive laws and unchecked settler expansion

LONDON: Attacks on Palestinian villagers in the West Bank by Israeli settlers, and the seizure or demolition of their properties under lopsided laws, are nothing new. But, ever since the start of the war in Gaza, the number and nature of such incidents has intensified.

Several attacks over the past few weeks have added to the impression that not only have settlers been given carte blanche to do as they please, but also that discipline within the ranks of the Israeli army operating in the West Bank is breaking down.

Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 917 Palestinians, including militants, in the West Bank.

On March 27, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, revealed that in the first three months of this year alone, 99 Palestinians had been killed during operations by Israeli forces in the West Bank.

Tens of thousands had been displaced from their homes, 10 UN-run schools had been forced to close, and 431 homes lacking impossible-to-acquire Israeli-issued building permits had been demolished — twice as many as over the same period last year.




An Israeli army soldier walks with a blindfolded man being detained, towards an armoured vehicle during a military operation in Nablus in the occupied West Bank on April 8, 2025. (AFP)

Occasionally, such attacks are caught on camera. That was the case at the beginning of this month, when footage circulated purportedly showing masked settlers attacking the village of Duma in the northern West Bank, setting fire to homes.

On Feb. 29, dozens of settlers, accompanied by Israel Defense Forces personnel, descended on Jinba, a shepherding community, where, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “uniformed and civilian-dressed Israelis raided the village, broke into all the homes, dumped food, vandalized appliances and terrorized the locals.”

The supposed trigger for the attack on the village, after which dozens of Palestinian men were rounded up and arrested, was an alleged assault on a settler shepherd. In fact, phone footage later emerged appearing to show the man in question approaching Palestinians and their flock on an all-terrain vehicle and physically assaulting one of them.

“Land seizures and violence by settlers is not new, but there has been a huge increase,” Alon Cohen-Lifshitz, an architect and adviser to the Israeli nongovernmental organization Planners for Planning Rights, or Bimkom, told Arab News.

“What has changed is that there is now widespread collaboration between the settlers, the army, the authorities, and the police. Now, the army is the settler.”




Charred cars sit at the entrance of the occupied West Bank village of Duma, in the aftermath of an Israeli settler attack, on April 17, 2024. (AFP)

Often those involved in violence and intimidation are from IDF reserve units, whose members are settlers and are deployed near their own settlements, and “sometimes they are wearing uniforms, sometimes not.”

Rarely is anyone arrested. “The police put obstacles in the way of Palestinians who come to submit complaints,” said Cohen-Lifshitz.

“The army, the police, and the settlers have become a single unit, working together against the poorest, most fragile and marginalized communities that don’t do any harm. These people are not involved in anything, but they live in fear of the settlers.” 

Their “crime” is that “they are living on land which Israel and the settlers want to control and ethnically cleanse,” he added.

Planning law is also being deployed against Palestinians in the West Bank. “Israel is using it like a weapon to conquer land,” said Cohen-Lifshitz.




According to Cohen-Lifshitz, “The army, the police, and the settlers have become a single unit, working together against the poorest, most fragile and marginalized communities that don’t do any harm.” (AFP)

It was planning law, he said, that led to the creation of settlements and the fragmentation of the West Bank, and “there are plans for the Palestinians, too, but the aim of these is to limit the development, to create very small areas in which building is allowed, but at a very high density, which is not how it used to be in Palestinian villages.

“There, it was about 10 units per hectare. Now the plans for Palestinian areas propose urban densities of 100 units, allowing the authorities to justify demolitions outside these areas.”

Over the past two years, however, “there has been a huge expansion in settlement outposts and farms. But, as far as we know, not a single permit for Palestinian building has been approved.”

Apparent indiscipline in the IDF ranks has not escaped the notice of the military top brass, who appear keen to ascribe poor conduct to reserve soldiers rather than core personnel.




Israeli excavators carry out the demolition of Palestinian buildings constructed without a permit in the village of Al-Samua, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, on April 8, 2025. (AFP)

Although he did not comment on the violence in Duma, Israel’s top commander in the occupied West Bank, Major General Avi Bluth, condemned the actions of reservists during a raid on the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem on April 2.

Images shared on social media showed vandalized apartments, where furniture was broken and Israeli nationalist slogans spray painted on walls. In a video shared by the army last week, Bluth said that “the conduct in Dheisheh by our reserve soldiers is not what we stand for.”

“Vandalism and graffiti during an operational mission are, from our perspective, unacceptable incidents. It is inconceivable that IDF soldiers do not act according to their commanders’ orders,” he added.




A Palestinian man walks past graffiti reading in Hebrew: “Revenge (R), Fight the enemy, not the ally (L)”, in a building after an attack by Israeli settlers, near the West Bank city of Salfit on April 8, 2025. (AFP)

It would be a mistake, however, to interpret the escalation in violence in the West Bank as the result of a collapse of discipline, said Ahron Bregman, a senior teaching fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, who served in the Israeli army for six years and took part in the 1982 Lebanon war.

“This is not about discipline. This is something else — the execution of a plan,” he said. “The war in Gaza is all but over. The main front now is the West Bank, where I think the Israelis are trying to implement a big plan to empty it of its people and annex it.”

The IDF, in Bregman’s view, has changed.

“Many IDF units, especially infantry, are now dominated by right-wing settlers. They have managed to penetrate these units to such an extent that I think it is not an exaggeration to say that many units, especially infantry, which is relevant because they are on the ground, are led by settlers.”

The driving force, he believes, is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a defense minister and is responsible for the administration of the West Bank.




Ahron Bregman, a senior teaching fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, who served in the Israeli army for six years said that many IDF units, especially infantry, are now dominated by right-wing settlers. (AFP)

Leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, Smotrich is himself a settler, who, in the words of a profile in The Times of Israel, “has long been a vociferous supporter of West Bank settlements and just as strongly opposes Palestinian statehood, subscribing to the view that Jews have a right to the whole land of Israel.”

The support of Israeli ministers for the settlers goes beyond mere words. Last year, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir gave more than 120,000 firearms to settlers. More recently, Smotrich and Orit Strock, the settlements and national missions minister, gifted 21 ATVs to illegal farms and outposts in the South Hebron hills, to be used “for security purposes.”

Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a US-registered non-profit that collects data on conflict and protest around the world, says its findings support the anecdotal evidence that violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is escalating.

“It is not always clear who is responsible,” Ameneh Mehvar, ACLED’s senior Middle East analyst, told Arab News.

“Is it always settlers, or soldiers, security squads, regional defense battalions? There is a blurring of lines. But we have definitely seen problematic behavior by soldiers in the past few weeks.”




Palestinians inspect the damage at a shop on January 21, 2025, after it was burnt in overnight Israeli settler attacks in Jinsafot village east of Qalqiliya in the occupied West Bank. (AFP)

Traditionally, she said, “the IDF’s rules of engagement in the West Bank were different. The policy of the Central Command was to limit violence and maintain the status quo — for practical reasons, as much as anything else, because settlers and Palestinians live side by side.

“But since Oct. 7, things have become much worse. There is a spirit of revenge and the soldiers feel they have the support of the rhetoric of far-right, pro-settler politicians. It isn’t necessarily that senior commanders are ordering more violence, but that junior commanders on the ground are allowing it.

“So what we’re seeing is a mix of this permissible environment, and the redeployment to the West Bank of soldiers from Gaza, coming back from the war there with the mindset that Palestinians are not humans. They use the same rules of engagement — that everyone is dangerous, anything is allowed, shoot first, and ask questions later.”

The pro-settlement parties in Israel, she said, “are no longer fringe actors, but are part of the mainstream in Israeli politics, and their aim is obviously annexation of parts of the West Bank.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu’s biggest interest is staying in power, and in order to keep his coalition together he has been giving a lot of incentives to the pro-settlement parties and politicians.”




Israeli soldiers fire teargas at Palestinian farmers as they leave their land after they were attacked by Israeli settlers as they farmed in Salem village east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on November 28, 2024. (AFP)

The IDF’s ongoing so-called “Iron Ball” operation in the northern West Bank is taking place against this background. According to the UN Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, the assault on Jenin Camp, which began two months ago, is “by far the longest and most destructive operation in the occupied West Bank since the Second Intifada in the 2000s.”

The UN says that tens of thousands of residents from Jenin, Tulkarm, Nur Shams, and Far’a refugee camps have been displaced, as the IDF has embarked on “systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and homes, aiming to permanently change the character of Palestinian cities and refugee camps at a scale unjustifiable by any purported military or law enforcement aims.”

Although the world’s attention has been focused on Israeli actions in Gaza and Lebanon, “what is happening in the West Bank is not a sideshow,” said Mehvar.

“Before Oct. 7, settler attacks were already on the rise. But now the West Bank is a powder keg that could explode at any time.”

 

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Lawyers denounce ‘fabricated’ Tunisia trial of opposition

Updated 6 sec ago
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Lawyers denounce ‘fabricated’ Tunisia trial of opposition

  • Among those sentenced were well-known opposition figures, lawyers and business people. Some have already been in prison for two years while others are in exile or still free

TUNIS: Lawyers and relatives on Monday denounced the hefty sentences handed down to Tunisian opposition figures in last week’s mass trial as “fabricated” and “unfounded,” and said they will appeal.
A court in Tunis in the early hours of Saturday handed down jail terms of up to 66 years to around 40 defendants, including vocal critics of President Kais Saied.
They were accused of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group” among other charges, according to their lawyers.
Defense lawyer Samir Dilou said on Monday the trial was “unprecedented in Tunisia” as “it handed the defendants a total of 892 years in prison.”
He said key evidence in the case was still missing, as lawyers had complained that they did not have full access to the case file.
“They still haven’t told us how the defendants conspired against the state,” Dilou told journalists.
He said an appeal could be filed as early as Tuesday.
Among those sentenced were well-known opposition figures, lawyers and business people. Some have already been in prison for two years while others are in exile or still free.
Several were arrested in February 2023, after which Saied labelled them “terrorists.”
Abdennasser Mehri, another defense lawyer, called the trial a “blatant violation of the law.”
“It’s a fabricated, unfounded case with a plan set in advance,” he said. “The scales of justice are broken.”
Dilou said Ahmed Souab, also a defense lawyer, was arrested early Monday after police raided his home.
Local media said he was accused of “threatening to commit terrorist crimes” in a statement made on Saturday after the trial, criticizing political pressure judges were allegedly under.
Online videos showed Souab saying that “knives are not on the necks of detainees, but on the neck of the judge issuing the ruling.”
Souab, a former judge, is expected to remain in detention “for five days and he won’t be allowed to communicate with his lawyers for 48 hours,” Dilou told AFP.
Human Rights Watch said on Saturday the court “did not give even a semblance of a fair trial” to the defendants.
Defense lawyer Dalila Msaddek said the trial was used “to lump together everyone they wanted to get rid of.”
Politicians Issam Chebbi and Jawhar Ben Mbarek of the opposition National Salvation Front coalition, as well as lawyer Ridha BelHajj and activist Chaima Issa, were sentenced to 18 years behind bars.
Activist Khayam Turki was handed a 48-year term and businessman Kamel Eltaief received the harshest penalty — 66 years in prison, according to lawyers.
Some defendants are abroad and were tried in absentia, like French intellectual Bernard Henri-Levy who received a 33-year jail term, lawyers said.
Since Saied launched a power grab in the summer of 2021 and assumed total control, rights advocates and opposition figures have decried a rollback of freedoms in the North African country where the 2011 Arab Spring began.
 

 


RSF shelling kills over 30 in besieged Sudanese city

Updated 27 min 46 sec ago
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RSF shelling kills over 30 in besieged Sudanese city

  • Sunday’s attack involved ‘heavy artillery shelling’ and targeted El-Fasher’s residential neighborhoods

PORT SUDAN: Paramilitary shelling of Sudan’s besieged city of El-Fasher, in the western region of Darfur, has killed more than 30 civilians and wounded dozens more, activists said on Monday.

The attack, which took place on Sunday, involved “heavy artillery shelling” and targeted the city’s residential neighborhoods, said the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across Sudan.

Since April 2023, the war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands, uprooted 13 million, and created what the UN describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

El-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, remains the last major city in the vast Darfur region that the paramilitary group has not conquered.

Last week, the RSF launched a renewed offensive on the city and two nearby displacement camps — Zamzam and Abu Shouk — killing more than 400 people and displacing some 400,000, according to the UN.

In a bloody ground offensive, the RSF took control of Zamzam camp, where aid workers say up to 1 million people were sheltering.

According to the UN, most of the displaced fled just north, to El-Fasher city itself, or 60 km west to the small town of Tawila.

By Thursday, more than 150,000 people had arrived in El-Fasher, while another 180,000 had fled to Tawila, the UN’s migration agency has said.

Humanitarian aid is nearly nonexistent in both famine-threatened towns.

On Monday, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, described the situation in the region as “horrifying.”

He said he had spoken by phone with army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his rival paramilitary commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who committed to giving “full access to get aid in.”

Throughout the war, both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war against civilians.

International aid agencies have long warned that a full-scale RSF assault on El-Fasher could lead to devastating urban warfare and a new wave of mass displacement.

UNICEF has described the situation as “hell on earth” for at least 825,000 children trapped in and around El-Fasher.

Following the army’s recapture of the capital Khartoum last month, the RSF has intensified efforts to seize El-Fasher, a strategic target for the paramilitary to consolidate its hold on Darfur.

The RSF already controls nearly all of the vast region, about the size of France, and parts of the south. 

The army holds the country’s center, east, and north.

However, the UN warned of a catastrophic humanitarian situation as the fighting escalated.

“The humanitarian community in Sudan is facing critical and intensifying operational challenges in North Darfur,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, said on Sunday.

She added that “despite repeated appeals, humanitarian access to El-Fasher and surrounding areas remains dangerously restricted,” warning that the lack of access was increasing the vulnerability of hundreds of thousands of people.”

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders has called for aid airdrops into the city in the face of access restrictions.


Saudi, Middle East, global leaders offer condolences following Pope Francis’ death

Updated 21 April 2025
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Saudi, Middle East, global leaders offer condolences following Pope Francis’ death

  • Countries across the region sent their condolences to the Vatican City

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent cables of condolences on the death of Pope Francis on Monday, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

The Muslim World League secretary-general Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, who met the Pope at the Vatican in December 2024, told Arab News that their friendship had strengthened cooperation between the League and the Vatican in “shared goals ... championing just humanitarian causes and promoting the values ​​of coexistence and global peace, in the face of the ideas and practices of religious and civilizational conflict and strife.”

The Pope was a man of “wisdom, just stances, and positive contributions, particularly to the Islamic world and its causes,” Al-Issa said.

The Muslim Council of Elders, headed by Egypt’s Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayyeb, also mourned Pope Francis’ passing and extended their condolences to “the leaders of the Catholic Church, our Christian brethren, and all advocates of peace and coexistence worldwide.”

Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed co-authored the historic Document on Human Fraternity, widely regarded as one of the most significant documents in modern human history.

“Pope Francis devoted his life to serving humanity and advancing the values of dialogue, tolerance, coexistence, peace, and human fraternity while he also tirelessly supported the vulnerable, needy, refugees, and the displaced, embodying a singular example of compassion and becoming a historic religious figure whose enduring humanitarian legacy will inspire future generations,” the group said in a statement on X.

Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi also offered his condolences following the death of Pope Francis on Monday.

“Pope Francis was a voice of peace, love and compassion,” said El-Sisi.

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, President of the UAE, said Francis dedicated his life to promoting the principles of peaceful coexistence and understanding.

“I extend my deepest condolences to Catholics around the world on the passing of Pope Francis, who dedicated his life to promoting the principles of peaceful coexistence and understanding. May he rest in peace,” said Sheikh Mohamed via statment on X.

Prime minister of UAE Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum said Pope Francis was a great leader whose compassion and commitment to peace touched countless lives.

In a statement on X, Sheikh Mohammed said “his legacy of humility and interfaith unity will continue to inspire many communities around the world.”

Jordan’s King Abdullah II, on X, meanwhile said: “Deepest condolences to our Christian brothers and sisters around the world. Pope Francis was admired by all as the Pope of the People. He brought people together, leading with kindness, humility, and compassion. His legacy will live on in his good deeds and teachings.”

Lebanon’s Christian President Joseph Aoun mourned the death on Monday of Pope Francis, a “dear friend and strong supporter” of the crisis-hit multi-confessional country.

“We will never forget his repeated calls to protect Lebanon and preserve its identity and diversity,” Aoun – the Arab world’s only Christian president – said in a statement on the presidency’s X account, calling Francis’s death “a loss for all humanity, for he was a powerful voice for justice and peace” who called for “dialogue between religions and cultures”.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas meanwhile paid tribute to Pope Francis, calling him a “faithful friend of the Palestinian people,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Palestinian Christians in Gaza on Monday mourned the death of the Pope, who had maintained close and consistent video contact with the small Christian community in the territory throughout the ongoing war.

Since the outbreak of fighting between Israel and Hamas, Francis had regularly called Gaza’s Christians, often several times a week, offering prayers, encouragement, and solidarity.

“Today, we lost a faithful friend of the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights,” Abbas said, noting that Pope Francis “recognized the Palestinian state and authorized the Palestinian flag to be raised in the Vatican.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed Pope Francis for his efforts to further dialogue between different faiths.

Iran also offered its condolonces. Israeli President Isaac Herzog praised the deceased pope on Monday as “a man of deep faith and boundless compassion.”

Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto on Monday expressed condolences over the death of Pope Francis.

“The Pope’s message of simplicity, pluralism, favoring the poor and caring for others will always be an example for all of us,” the president said in an Instagram post.

Grief-stricken Argentines massed at Buenos Aires Cathedral early Monday to collectively mourn their late pontiff, compatriot and hero, Pope Francis.

In his final years, Francis had often tussled with political leaders, including Argentina’s current libertarian president, Javier Milei.

But there was a rare sense of political unity Monday in what is still a deeply polarized nation, with even Milei too acknowledging that his political differences with the late pontiff “today seem minor,” as he prepared to decree seven days of national mourning.

GALLERY: Pope Francis: The world mourns

Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church died after suffering from pneumonia.

In 2019, Pope Francis was the first pontiff to lead a mass in the Middle East, more specifically the UAE.  

Francis charted new relations with the Muslim world by visiting the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope on March 13, 2013, surprising many Church watchers who had seen the Argentine cleric, known for his concern for the poor, as an outsider.

He sought to project simplicity into the grand role and never took possession of the ornate papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace used by his predecessors, saying he preferred to live in a community setting for his “psychological health.”


Gaza civil defense describes medic killings as ‘summary executions’

Updated 21 April 2025
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Gaza civil defense describes medic killings as ‘summary executions’

  • Israel also accused of seeking to ‘circumvent’ its obligations under international law

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency on Monday accused the Israeli military of carrying out “summary executions” in the killing of 15 rescue workers last month, rejecting the findings of an internal probe by the army.

“The video filmed by one of the paramedics proves that the Israeli occupation’s narrative is false and demonstrates that it carried out summary executions,” Mohammed Al-Mughair, a civil defense official, said, a day after an Israeli army probe denied any execution-style killings. He also accused Israel of seeking to “circumvent” its obligations under international law.

The Palestine Red Crescent also rejected the findings of an Israeli military investigation that blamed operational failures for the killing of 15 Gaza emergency service workers, denouncing the report as “full of lies.”

“The report is full of lies. It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different,” Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Red Crescent, said.


Israeli opposition leader fears political violence over Shin Bet affair

Updated 21 April 2025
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Israeli opposition leader fears political violence over Shin Bet affair

  • The supreme court froze the government’s initial attempt to sack Bar, and earlier this month it gave the cabinet and the attorney general’s office until the end of the just concluded Passover holiday to work out a compromise

TEL AVIV: Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said he feared an outbreak of political violence connected to what he called a campaign of hate against the country’s internal security chief, whom the government has moved to sack.
“The red line has been crossed. If we don’t stop this, there will be a political murder here, maybe more than one. Jews will kill jews,” Lapid said at a press conference in Tel Aviv, adding that “the most serious threats are directed at the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar.”
Bar’s dismissal as head of the internal security agency has been challenged in court by the opposition, which decried it as a sign of anti-democratic drift on the part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government.
Bar has suggested his ouster was linked to investigations into Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack “and other serious matters,” while Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has warned of “a personal conflict of interest on the part of the prime minister due to the criminal investigations involving his associates.”
The supreme court froze the government’s initial attempt to sack Bar, and earlier this month it gave the cabinet and the attorney general’s office until the end of the just concluded Passover holiday to work out a compromise.
Bar could resign soon, according to media reports, which would bring the matter to a close.
Lapid, leader of the center-right Yesh Atid party, argued that Bar should resign over his agency’s failure to prevent the October 7 attack, and acknowledged the government had the legal authority to dismiss him, provided it was done through due process and “approved by the court.”
But he also held Netanyahu responsible for a campaign of threats levelled at Bar.
Lapid presented screenshots of social media posts containing death threats against the security chief, telling Netanyahu: “Stop this.”
“Instead of supporting incitement (to hatred), support the Shin Bet, the security forces, the systems that keep this country alive,” he added.
In 1995, the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist after a campaign of violent rhetoric against him sent shockwaves through Israel.
Some accused then-opposition leader Netanyahu of not doing enough to discourage incitement to violence at the time.