Danger ahead: What the West Bank’s red signs say about peace

From murdered motorists in Huwara to the Palestinian Authority’s vow of a Jew-free state, the message is clear: Coexistence cannot begin where exclusion is policy.

Drive through Judea and Samaria, and you’ll see them everywhere: bright-red signs warning Israelis in three languages that entering a Palestinian Authority town is “forbidden, dangerous to your lives and against Israeli law.”

Imagine, for a moment, an American community posting a sign that says, “Italians entering do so at their own risk.” The outrage would be swift and universal. Yet in Israel’s biblical heartland, such warnings are a routine part of the landscape.

Wikimedia Commons

These signs exist because they must. They reflect a reality that no peace process slogan can obscure: Israelis who cross into P.A.-controlled areas risk their lives.

The danger isn’t theoretical. In August 2023, a father and son from Ashdod were murdered in Huwara while waiting for their car to be serviced. Hamas proudly claimed responsibility. Just months earlier, two brothers, Hillel and Yagel Yaniv were shot dead in the same town. Across Judea and Samaria, Israeli drivers are routinely pelted with rocks, concrete blocks and Molotov cocktails as they travel along Route 60, the region’s main north-south artery.

These attacks aren’t random crimes. They’re part of a pattern of tolerated violence, celebrated in Palestinian social media and rewarded by the P.A.’s “pay-for-slay” stipends—monthly salaries to terrorists and their families. When killers are glorified and subsidized, no one should be surprised that hatred thrives. The P.A.’s leaders have said openly what many of their supporters believe: a future Palestinian state should be Judenrein, or “free of Jews.”

In 2013, chief negotiator Saeb Erekat insisted that not a single Israeli would be permitted to live in a Palestinian state. In 2019, current P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas repeated that pledge, declaring that “not one Israeli” would remain.

In any other context, the promise of an ethnic-cleansing policy would trigger international condemnation. In the Palestinian context, it’s shrugged off as political rhetoric. Yet it explains why those red warning signs exist—not because Israelis want segregation but because Palestinian leadership embraces exclusion.

Meanwhile, the P.A.’s textbooks continue to erase Israel from maps and glorify “martyrs.” The result is a generation raised to believe that Jews are intruders to be resisted, not neighbors to be respected.

Israel’s critics call the current system unequal. They’re right, but they’re looking in the wrong direction.

Palestinians enter Israeli cities daily—for work, medical care, shopping—without fear. No Israeli town posts signs warning Arabs that their lives are in danger. And when extremists tried to put up such a sign in the Jewish community of Yitzhar in 2020, Israeli authorities removed it immediately, denouncing it as racist.

The contrast couldn’t be clearer: Jews who stray into Palestinian towns risk their lives. Palestinians who enter Jewish towns go home safely. That’s not a political imbalance. It’s a moral one.

The red signs at Palestinian town entrances are more than traffic warnings; they are monuments to a worldview that still defines peace as the absence of Jews.

For decades, Israel has been told that peace will come when the Palestinians achieve statehood. But what kind of state bars Jews by law? What message does it send when “coexistence” means Jews stay out—or else?

If Palestinian leaders truly sought peace, then they would prepare their people to live alongside Israelis, not without them. They would dismantle the culture of martyrdom, end the stipends to terrorists, and teach children that Jews are part of the region’s history and future.

Until then, those red signs will continue to mark more than borders. They mark a moral divide—between a society that protects its neighbors and one that glorifies their murder.

This post and others by Stephen M. Flatow can be read online here.

Manchester’s Yom Kippur Attack and Britain’s Dangerous Drift

The Manchester synagogue attack wasn’t random. Britain’s refusal to confront radicalization, unchecked migration, and antisemitic street culture has left its Jews vulnerable — and exposed the failure of moral clarity in its politics.

A Quiet Yom Kippur Shattered

There’s a particular stillness to Yom Kippur afternoon — a quiet so deep that even the air feels heavy. That stillness was broken in Manchester this year when a terrorist rammed his car into worshippers leaving the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, then attacked with a knife. Two Jews were murdered, several others were wounded, and an entire community was left shaken.

Basateen, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

For British Jews, it was a moment of horror — but for many, sadly, not of surprise. The attack was not a random act of hatred. It was the latest, most violent symptom of something Britain has refused to confront: the slow decay of moral boundaries, the normalization of antisemitism, and the political timidity that enables both.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s promise to “do everything in my power to guarantee you the security that you deserve” was sincere. But words, even well-intentioned ones, cannot undo years of policy failure.

When Multiculturalism Replaces Integration

Britain has prided itself on tolerance and diversity. Yet tolerance without integration breeds division, not harmony.

For decades, large waves of migration from Muslim-majority countries reshaped Britain’s social fabric. Most immigrants and their children have contributed positively to society. But the refusal to insist on shared civic values—respect for the law, rejection of violence, and commitment to democratic principles—has created pockets of alienation where extremism festers.

It’s not bigotry to say what’s evident: when integration fails, radicalization succeeds. British intelligence agencies have warned for years that disaffected youth are being drawn into extremist networks. Manchester’s tragedy is a product of that neglect.

Hatred in the Streets

London’s massive pro-Palestinian marches began as “peace protests.” Too many have morphed into open displays of antisemitism: chants of “intifada,” slogans calling for Israel’s destruction, and the casual demonization of Jews.

Police and politicians hesitate to act for fear of appearing “Islamophobic.” But this permissiveness is itself a form of cowardice. When hate speech is tolerated in public squares, it becomes ambient noise—and some will always take that noise as a call to violence.

Starmer’s Symbolic Misstep

Just weeks before the Manchester attack, Prime Minister Starmer recognized a Palestinian state. He did so without demanding that the Palestinians renounce terror, recognize Israel, or release the hostages still held in Gaza.

The decision was meant to show leadership. Instead, it signaled appeasement. At a time of rising antisemitism, Britain’s leaders chose symbolism over security. For extremists, the message was clear: violence can move governments.

Britain’s Jews Deserve Better

British Jews are among the most loyal, productive citizens in the nation’s history. Yet today, they walk to synagogue under police escort, cover their kippot in public, and wonder whether their country still sees them as part of its moral center.

Starmer’s vow to protect them must become policy, not platitude. That means:

•  Enforcing hate-crime laws against incitement.
• Restricting demonstrations that glorify terror.
•  Investing in integration that builds shared identity.
•  Reaffirming publicly that Jews are part of Britain’s story, not guests in it.

The Test of a Nation

The Manchester synagogue attack is a tragedy — but also a test. Britain can either rediscover the civic and moral clarity that once defined it, or continue down the path of fear, fragmentation, and appeasement.

If Britain cannot protect its Jews, it cannot protect itself.

Stephen M. Flatow

This post and others can also be seen at my Times of Israel Blog