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Israeli Lawmaker Destroys Palestinian Memorial In Occupied West Bank

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by blueapples
Wednesday, Aug 26, 2026 - 11:30

bluapples on X | ashesofacacia.substack.com


As the backlash from the United States-Israel-led war continues to reverberate from Tehran to Washington, D.C., U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu find themselves struggling to maintain the political hold they have on their respective nations. The fallout from the war poses a crisis to both Trump and Netanyahu as the calendar turns ever closer toward monumental elections this fall that increasingly appear as if they could mark the final chapter of each of their political legacies. Yet, unlike Trump, whose dwindling support in the U.S. ahead of mid-term elections merely signals the loss of his Republican Party’s control of Congress, a disastrous outcome in the 2026 Israeli legislative election scheduled for October 27th could mean the end of Netanyahu’s tenure as Prime Minister of Israel. The momentum Netanyahu’s opposition has gained ahead of elections to determine the 26th Knesset isn’t the only obstacle he faces to stay office, as chaos within his own ruling government continues to undermine the viability of his political future.

The latest episode of existential turmoil within the Netanyahu government that has fortified his opposition with political ammunition emerged from the actions taken by a far-right member of his ruling coalition. Zvi Sukkot, a Member of the Knesset (”MK”) belonging to the Religious Zionist Party led by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, plunged the Netanyahu government into even more disarray after he destroyed a Palestinian monument in the occupied West Bank on August 25th, 2026. Sukkot destroyed the Palestinian Martyrs Memorial erected in the village of Kafr Madama near Nablus to honor members of the al-Aqsa brigade and civilians killed in the First and Second Intifada by taking a sledgehammer to it alongside his aides while being guarded by members of the Israel Defense Forces (”IDF”).

Israeli lawmaker Zvi Sukkot destroys a Palestinian memorial in the occupied West Bank.

Sukkot justified his actions in a statement posted on his X account, writing, “Every child who sees every day a giant monument that glorifies murderers of Jews will dream of being a terrorist.” The Religious Zionist Party MK laced that unapologetic defense of his act with the looming threat that it was just “a small taste” of what’s to come. He ended his public statement addressing the destruction of the monument with a message bereft of self-awareness, stating, “There is no place for support of terror in the State of Israel!”

IDF officials confirmed they diverted troops from standard operational duties to guard Sukkot and his aides as they destroyed the memorial. Those officials offered a narrative designed to counter the optics of their actions, stating, “Contrary to the coordination, the participants acted deceitfully and manipulatively, without authority and in complete violation of the approved framework, and began demolishing one of the memorials in the village of Madama.” Despite claiming that MK Sukkot broke protocols with his actions, the IDF confirmed that it does regularly demolish memorials they deem as symbols of incitement of terrorism across the West Bank. That clarification conveyed how Sukkot’s actions were less of a departure from that practice but merely were done without conforming to the bureaucracy of attaining the required approvals from the Israeli Civil Administration of the occupied West Bank to carry them out.

Although IDF officials also stated they instructed the troops guarding Sukkot and his aides to stop and remove the group from the village, footage capturing the destruction of the memorial did not show the soldiers intervene. When pressed for any proof that the IDF troops carried out their alleged orders to stop Sukkot from destroying the memorial, a spokesperson for the military stated that the soldiers had not been sent with a photographer to guard the group and thus were unable to provide any footage proving they fulfilled that directive.

Kafr Madama village council head, Rami Nassar, decried Sukkot’s actions in the wake of the destruction of the memorial. Nassar issued a stark warning on how the acceptance of his actions would ultimately motivate more violence against Palestinians in the West Bank village. The Jerusalem-based Israeli nonprofit organization B’Tselem, also known as the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, has documented at least 18 separate incidences of illegal settler violence against Palestinians in the village since 2020 alone, excluding the actions of Sukkot under his armed IDF guard. Those episodes of violence include settlers stoning villagers, setting fire to Palestinians’ homes, and soldiers firing live rounds at civilians.

Given that history of violence institutionalized and effectively sanctioned by the Israeli government, Nassar spoke to the gravity of what Sukkot’s actions meant to the future of Palestinians in Kafr Madama and across the whole of the occupied West Bank. “When an official Israeli politician acts like this, what can we expect from other radical settlers? It could push them to follow in his footsteps, leading to more raids and causing harm and harassment to residents and their property,” he said.

Albeit for more advantageous motives, opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed Nassar by denouncing the actions of Sukkot. Opposition leaders condemned his attack, seizing upon the opportunity to use it in order to amplify their criticisms of Netanyahu. Former IDF Chief of Staff and current Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot stated that the incident was made possible by Netanyahu’s actions that have undermined Israel’s governance and security protections in the West Bank. According to Eisenkot, those policies have enabled “the anarchist Zvi Sukkot and those like him to do as they wish.”

Together party leader and former prime minister Naftali Bennett joined Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset Yair Lapid, who seized upon the opportunity to attack Netanyahu by condemning Sukkot through the lens that his actions put the lives of Israeli soldiers, civilians, and the Jewish diaspora at risk. Lapid warned that Sukkot’s destruction of the Palestinian memorial further damaged “what is left of Israel’s image in the world.”

The most fervent condemnation of Sukkot came from Democrats party leader and Netanyahu opponent Yair Golan, who stated, “This is a person who should be behind bars and bolts, not in the Knesset of Israel” in a video posted to his account on X. Golan pointed to how the chaos enveloping Sukkot was not an isolated incident but another episode in a long history of extremism, highlighting how the MK joined in a riot storming the Sde Teiman military base in July 2024 after IDF reservists were detained for severe sexual abuse of a Palestinian detainee. Sukkot, alongside dozens of other rioters led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security of Israel and leader of the Kahanist Jewish Power party, stormed the Israeli detention camp in the Negev desert to demand the release of the detained IDF reservists suspected of participating in the systematic sexual abuse Palestinian prisoners have been subjected to at the site.

Golan parlayed his criticism of Sukkot into a call to depose the extremist factions within the Netanyahu ruling government in an effort to effectuate a change in the leadership of the Israeli regime. “In the upcoming elections, the Kahanists and messianists must be removed from centers of power, and Israel returned to its track. They want eternal war. We will fight for a secure, democratic, and sane state,” he stated in the video. After its publication, Sukkot threatened to sue Golan if he did not remove the post within half an hour. Likud, the largest party in the Knesset led by Netanyahu, bolstered that threat by petitioning the Israeli Central Elections Committee to punish Golan on the grounds that the statements expressed in the video constituted prohibited electioneering. Shortly after the threat, Golan deleted the post.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin responded to the controversy eliciting a verbal sparring match between members of the Knesset by issuing his latest in a seemingly endless series of half-hearted performative denouncements. Netanyahu’s response was as concerned as it was lengthy, simply stating that public officials should not “take the law into their own hands,” without even referring to Sukkot by name. While Netanyahu warned that Sukkot’s act "prevents the IDF from focusing on its missions against terrorism and incitement," he refused to condemn the attack on the basis of the motives driving it.

Netanyahu’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, did not shy away from addressing Sukkot by name in rushing to the defense of the member of his party. Smotrich characterized the memorial destroyed by Sukkot as a monument celebrating terrorism, adding that Israel should have dismantled it long ago. “What should really concern us is the headlong rush by the leaders of the left-wing opposition to condemn MK Sukkot, rather than the terrorism itself,” said Smotrich, framing his party member as a victim instead of the perpetrator of an attack. Fellow Religious Zionist Party member Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu echoed the support offered to Sukkot by Smotrich. In a show of solidarity with his party member, Eliyahu backed Sukkot, stating “destroying a memorial for terrorists is welcome.”

The solidarity exemplified by members of the Religious Zionist Party in support of MK Zvi Sukkot comes in stark juxtaposition to the reactions expressed by members of the Knesset as a whole. Those fractured lines across the Israeli legislature highlight the precarious position Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself in, as he has become utterly dependent on courting extremist factions like the Religious Zionist Party in order to keep a ruling coalition that can preserve his tenure in office. That growing dependence in turn serves to stoke the fervor of their radical actions as they have become emboldened by the understanding of how indispensable they are to the political survival of the prime minister. Ahead of a pivotal election in October, that dynamic means that Netanyahu has put himself in a position where he can only hold on to his office by fanning the flames of Zionist extremism to run more rampantly. What remains to be seen is whether those actions will ultimately strengthen his grasp on power or the opposition that seeks to depose him.

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