Father of settler teen killed by Palestinian says son was ‘sacrifice’ for settlements cause |
Yehuda Sherman, an 18-year-old settler activist who was killed on Saturday in circumstances still being investigated by security services was laid to rest in the settlement of Elon Moreh on Sunday, in a funeral attended by many hundreds of mourners as well as several senior politicians.
Sherman, a resident of the illegal settlement outpost of Shuva Yisrael Farms in the northern West Bank, was killed on Saturday afternoon when the ATV he was traveling in was hit by a Palestinian vehicle.
The police and IDF have said they are examining whether the incident was an accident or a terror attack, although Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other settler activists have already described the incident as “murder” and a terror attack, without waiting for the official findings.
The 18-year-old was eulogized by his father, Yehoshua Sherman, and others, including the rabbi of Elon Moreh, as having been a sacrifice of the Jewish people towards the goal of establishing Jewish settlements in the West Bank and thwarting the creation of a Palestinian state.
In his eulogy for his teen son, Yehoshua, a longtime activist in Smotrich’s Religious Zionist party, called on the government to abolish the 1993 Oslo Accords and vowed to continue his son’s work by establishing new illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank in the coming days.
Following the eulogies from family members, Smotrich also addressed the funeral, vowing that he was working to “collapse” the Palestinian Authority and assert full Israeli control over the West Bank.
Sherman was killed when the ATV he was traveling in with his brother Daniel was hit by a pickup truck driven by a local Palestinian man.
Daniel, who was injured in the incident, alleged on Sunday morning that the vehicle deliberately sped up to hit their ATV and rammed them off a cliff. The IDF and the police have yet to determine the nature of the incident, however, and have not confirmed Daniel’s account.
Shuva Yisrael Farms is an illegal farming outpost inhabited by a handful of young settler activist families and young men, like Yehuda Sherman and his brother, who herd sheep and conduct other small-scale agricultural activities on the hilltop, several kilometers north of Nablus.
A crowdfunding page for the outpost describes its mission as being “the spearhead for activities throughout northern Samaria with the goal of seizing the lands and leaving them in Jewish hands.”
Sherman’s parents appear to have donated funds to the outpost through the crowdfunding page, which has raised over NIS 1 million ($320,000).
Extremist settlers conducted a wave of revenge attacks against Palestinian villages and towns Saturday night following Sherman’s death, and they called for further reprisals after the funeral on Sunday.
“Our Yehuda — a boy who was all heart and soul, a boy from the Land of Israel, a proud sabra, who loved the Land of Israel with all his soul, a child of the generation of redemption — ‘Earth, do not cover his blood,’” cried Yehoshua, in his eulogy for his son.
“Father in Heaven… we are sending you a brave warrior, a true hero, our Yehuda,” he continued.
Yehoshua also declared that the government should abolish the Oslo Accords — which granted the Palestinians a degree of political autonomy in the West Bank with a horizon to a sovereign state — in response to the “sacrifice” of his son.
“I call from here to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to Minister Bezalel Smotrich… Our Yehuda was a communal sacrifice,” he said, using the term for a sacrifice that in ancient times was offered on behalf of the nation at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
“The government of Israel must wipe out the disgrace of Oslo,” Yehoshua Sherman demanded, vowing to build new illegal outposts in his son’s name.
“We will raise up new settlement outposts in northern Samaria, Tzur Yehuda, Netzah Yehuda, and Pisgat Yehuda,” he said. “God willing, with joint forces, we will continue to inherit our beloved land.”
Smotrich, a longtime friend of the Sherman family, said at the funeral that the government was working to “collapse” the Palestinian Authority.
“We are going in their path [of Sherman and his associates] to collapse the authority of evil and terror called the Palestinian Authority,” said the finance minister.
“We will wipe out the lines and the definitions and the letters,” he said, referencing the division of territory in the West Bank between Israel and the PA — Areas A, B, and C.
Speaking to The Times of Israel, Gedalia, a 27-year-old man from Yitzhar who attended the funeral, said that Sherman had been fulfilling a “strategic mission” to expel Palestinians from the West Bank and bring about Jewish settlement in the territory.
“He went with self-sacrifice. Every day, he took his herd out [to pasture] to remove the enemy from all the territory there so that Jews will come back to this place,” said Gedalia.
“Today, one of the most important actions in all of Judea and Samaria is to expel all the enemy from all the regions. You can count the number of Jews there [the northern West Bank] on your fingers. Yehuda took this mission upon himself, and that’s where he fell.”
Asked if he supports the calls for vengeance for Sherman’s death and violence against local Palestinians, Gedalia answered in the affirmative.
“I’m very happy to hear such things,” he said. “I’m happy to hear whenever the enemy has been harmed and feels less like the one running things here. I’m very happy, yes… If only the state would do it, but if they don’t do it, these youths are [doing it].”
Israeli authorities have almost entirely failed to prevent and crack down on settler violence, which has ballooned since October 7, 2023, and increased further since the start of the current war with Iran.
Numerous young men with long, unkempt sidelocks characteristic of radical settler activists were present at the funeral, although they were mostly unwilling to speak to this reporter.
When asked what the response to Sherman’s death should be, one said, “[Give it to them] in the neck,” while another said simply: “Write one word: ‘Vengeance.’”
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West Bank settlements
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