Since Aug. 9, my home in the West Bank village of Qusra has been under siege. Dozens of Israeli settlers have surrounded it as well as other homes in my village throwing objects at my house, destroying the fence around my property, and even cutting off our water and electricity in an apparent effort to drive out my family and our neighbors and take our village over.
I live in the United States full time, but built this house in Qusra, where my mother and much of my family still live. When Israeli settlers began attacking our village, I was in Toledo, Ohio, where I live, so my brother and nephew went to stay at the Qusra house to prevent them from seizing it. As access to our village started to be cut off, my brother called me to tell me he and my nephew had begun rationing food. I decided then that they wouldn’t face this alone. I packed my bags and began my journey to the West Bank carrying the only defense I could think of: an American flag.
I’m a U.S. citizen, and have been for the past 17 years. But I was born and raised in the West Bank, in Qusra, where I am writing from now. Throughout my childhood, I watched our land and freedom be stolen from us by Israeli policies that expanded illegal settlements and deepened Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank. Now, those policies have emboldened settlers to make me a prisoner in my own home. As a Palestinian, I have next to no rights here. That’s why I’ve put an American flag above my house: I hoped that my American identity might afford me a degree of protection that my Palestinian identity could not.
Illegal activity by Israeli settlers in the West Bank is nothing new. For decades, they have taken over Palestinian hillsides and family olive groves, choking our economy as they seize tracts of Palestinian agricultural land. Israel subjects Palestinians to military law in all of the West Bank. Israeli settlers in the West Bank, by contrast, live under civilian laws and are granted many more freedoms.
If you’re Palestinian, something as small as a visit to the grocery store or as urgent as an emergency visit to the hospital becomes an hourslong journey of humiliating checkpoints, iron gates and military outposts. International human rights groups have called this system apartheid. The settlers who attack our villages — radicals with racist ideology toward Palestinians — are often armed. Being harassed by them has become a daily occurrence for many; walking in your front yard a death wish for others.
Just a month before the siege on my village, a Palestinian man in a neighboring village, Jalud, reported that Israeli settlers had seized the house he was building for his newly engaged son to start his married life. Years of hard work and money gone in an instant.
Israeli settlers follow a playbook: They build outposts in Palestinian villages that are considered illegal even under Israeli law. Those outposts become springboards from which settlers menace Palestinian communities, using tactics that Amnesty International declared to be carried out “with full political, legal and financial state backing.” These outposts are often retroactively legalized by the Israeli government. Then, the Israeli army will declare the Palestinian area a “closed military zone,” ostensibly to keep the settlers out but also effectively controlling all aspects of life there. And eventually, under these absurd conditions, many Palestinians are forced to flee our own homes. This is part of why more than 36,000 Palestinians in the West Bank have been forcibly displaced in one year alone.
Since I arrived at my house a few weeks ago, I’ve awakened to settlers walking freely in the hills around my property. I can hear Israeli soldiers exchanging jokes with the very settlers who they claim to be impeding. The Israeli military dispersed some of the settlers and said it had detained one Israeli. But the settlers came back and many have remained under the military’s watch. The prime minister and president of Israel have condemned their actions, and the police has made arrests elsewhere in the West Bank. But in Qusra, there have been no reported arrests of the settlers assaulting our homes, while the Israeli military reportedly arrested six Palestinians before releasing them. Because the Israeli army declared my own land a “closed military zone,” it can take days to get food to our house. If I try to take a walk on my property, Israeli soldiers yell at me to stay inside, threatening to use force if I step foot in my own front yard.
I am effectively a prisoner in my own home.
The U.S. Embassy, and my elected representatives, have helped mitigate the situation. Ambassador Mike Huckabee described these settlers as “terrorists.” My congressional representative in Ohio, Marcy Kaptur, helped ensure my safe travel upon arrival, and has checked in on me regularly. And on one occasion, when my relatives were trying to bring me food and water and were held for hours at an Israeli checkpoint, the U.S. embassy intervened so they could pass.
None of that should be necessary. What these settlers are doing to my family is illegal both under international law and Israeli law. There is a simple solution to this: The Israeli government should dismantle all illegal outposts and hold every settler responsible for this violence accountable. It has both the authority and the responsibility to do this.
As Israel’s most important ally, the United States can do so much more to stop settlement expansion and violence in the West Bank. Most countries and the United Nations regard all Israeli settlements in the West Bank unlawful. Yet, for decades, successive administrations in Washington have provided tens of billions of dollars in military funding to Israel while offering diplomatic cover to its government. There have been measures to punish settlers: Under President Joe Biden, for instance, several settler groups and individuals were placed under sanctions. But almost as soon as he entered office, President Trump rescinded them. Decades of inaction from multiple administrations have effectively enabled the very system that keeps my family trapped inside our home.
As I sit in my home now, surrounded by violent settlers and with even more said to be making their way to our village, the American flag continues to fly from my roof. I will keep flying it as a signal to the American people and the U.S. government to take action against this violence, end the siege on Qusra, and impose sanctions on these settlers.
The hope that it might afford my family a measure of protection that our Palestinian identity alone could not speaks to the profound dehumanization of my people. My life should not suddenly become more valuable because I am an American citizen — and yet, that’s exactly what has happened. The attention my family has received is a reflection of my passport, not the righteousness of my fight.
Every Palestinian family facing settler violence possesses the same fundamental right to live safely in their homes. I raised the American flag because I needed the world to pay attention to protect my family. But no Palestinians should need a foreign flag above their home for their humanity to be recognized.
Loui Ridi is a businessman in Toledo, Ohio, and owns a home in Qusra in the West Bank, where he was born and raised.
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