In an Ohio town, Israeli settler violence in the West Bank hits close to home
A Palestinian American family in Toledo, Ohio, is anxiously monitoring the siege of relatives' property in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers. The situation illustrates how the Middle East conflict is increasingly felt within US communities.
In Toledo, Ohio, Tim Ridi watches security camera footage on his phone showing the besieged home of his brother Loui in Qusra, a village south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. This month, Israeli settlers surrounded several Palestinian properties in Qusra, including the Ridi family home, trapping residents inside as food and water supplies ran low. Loui traveled from Ohio to the family's ancestral home, where his mother and other relatives live, and one of his first acts there was to plant an American flag on the property.
On 13 August, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee described the settlers' actions on social media as those of "terrorists." While the Trump administration has long backed Israel and its settlement expansion, recent remarks from Vice-President JD Vance and Trump himself suggest a shift in tone.
Conflict reaching American communities
For decades, the war in the Middle East was a distant story for Toledo residents. But sustained migration to Midwestern towns, combined with the war in Gaza and rising settler violence, has brought the conflict closer to home. Last October, five people were arrested in Toledo while protesting outside the office of Republican senator Jon Husted over his vote to send aid to Israel. The city council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire after 7 October 2023.
Polling shows a widening gap between American public opinion and government support for Israel: about six in ten respondents held an unfavorable view of the country, up seven percentage points in a year.
Ohio's Arab American community grew from the late 1800s alongside the region's manufacturing industry, and Toledo once had its own "Little Syria" district. The Ridi family's business — a chain of supermarkets, car washes and gas stations founded in 1999 — employs hundreds of people and donates heavily to charity each year. Ridi normally visits Qusra three times a year, though the war in Gaza and West Bank violence have made this increasingly difficult.
