Ed Miliband Says There Is “Ethnic Cleansing” in the West Bank. Does the Evidence Prove It?

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has made an extraordinarily serious accusation.

Speaking in the House of Commons on September 8, Miliband said:

“The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists.”

But the evidence does not establish that accusation as fact.

There are documented cases of Jews attacking Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, and some Palestinian communities have been displaced during the war.

Calling this “ethnic cleansing,” however, requires a much bigger evidentiary leap.

Palestinians Are Not Disappearing From Judea and Samaria

Start with the demographic reality.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the Palestinian population of Judea and Samaria was approximately 3.33 million in 2024 and is projected to reach approximately 3.46 million in 2026.

That is growth of about 4.2 percent in two years.

There is no evidence of a mass Palestinian exodus from Judea and Samaria.

In Judea and Samaria, there is also a lot of document continued population growth.

This cannot disprove displacement from an individual village. But it does demolish any suggestion that Palestinians are just being removed from the territory.

Miliband Left Out the Other Side of the Violence

Miliband singled out what he called “settler terrorists.”

Missing from his statement was the extraordinary scale of Palestinian terrorism confronting Jewish civilians in Judea and Samaria.

Palestinian attacks include several dozens of shootings, stabbings, throwing huge stones at cars on the roads, vehicle rammings, roadside bombs and other explosive attacks just this year.

In 2024, Israeli security services thwarted 1,040 significant Palestinian terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem.

Those included 689 planned shootings, 326 planned explosive attacks, 13 stabbings, nine vehicle rammings, two suicide bombings and an attempted kidnapping.

In 2025, the number of significant attacks reportedly prevented rose to 1,374, mostly planned shootings and roadside bombs.

That number is crucial.

Only around 57 to 60 significant Palestinian attacks were actually carried out in 2025, according to Israeli security figures.

In other words, the relatively low number of successful attacks does not mean the underlying threat disappeared. It reflects the enormous number stopped before reaching their intended victims.

Shootings, stabbings, explosives and vehicle attacks remained recurring threats.

Twenty Israelis were murdered in Palestinian terrorist attacks in 2025.

Palestinian attacks are also considerably more lethal per successful incident than the much broader category Israel uses for Jewish nationalist crime.

None of this woukd excuse a Jew who attacks a Palestinian without reason - but is that really a thing or is it media bias and propaganda?

This provides essential context when Britain's foreign secretary chooses to characterize one direction of so called settler violence as “ethnic cleansing” while saying nothing about the sustained terrorism directed at Jews living and travelling in the same territory.

A Tiny Fringe Is Not an Entire Population

There is another problem with the narrative.

Israeli security assessments put the number of active Jewish extremists responsible for this violence in the low hundreds.

One assessment identified roughly 200 to 300 active extremists, with approximately 70 considered the hard core responsible for the most serious incidents.

That is a tiny fringe of the Jewish population of Judea and Samaria.

The IDF itself does not describe these people as representative of Jewish communities.

Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has called their actions “morally and ethically unacceptable” and said they “do not represent the settlements.”

He has demanded that authorities uproot the phenomenon.

So when individual Jews allegedly commit crimes, Israel's military leadership publicly treats them as criminals threatening Israel's own security.

That is important context before their actions are transformed into evidence of an organized ethnic cleansing campaign.

The 33,000 Displaced Palestinians Are a Different Case

More than 33,000 Palestinians also remain displaced from the Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams.

But they were not displaced by the Jewish extremists Miliband accused.

They were displaced during Operation Iron Wall, an Israeli military counterterrorism campaign.

These cities contained extensive terrorist infrastructure, including armed groups, weapons manufacturing facilities, roadside explosives and bomb laboratories.

In the early stages of the operation in Jenin alone, Israeli forces reported dismantling more than 100 explosive devices, discovering a weapons manufacturing workshop and destroying more than 30 explosives planted beneath roads.

Israel subsequently prevented residents from returning while maintaining its military presence. Then Defense Minister Israel Katz explicitly instructed the IDF not to allow residents back while Israel worked to prevent terrorist organizations from rebuilding their infrastructure.

That policy can certainly be scrutinized.

But displacement resulting from an IDF counterterrorism operation cannot simultaneously be presented as evidence that “settler terrorists” expelled those residents.

They are two different issues.

Even the UN Did Not Establish Miliband's Claim as Fact

The UN human rights office examined the northern camp displacement and concluded that the circumstances “raise concerns of ethnic cleansing.”

Those words matter.

It did not establish ethnic cleansing as a fact.

Miliband went further.

“The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing,” he declared.

Israel rejected the UN report, accusing the human rights office of spreading misinformation and failing to adequately address the terrorist infrastructure behind the operation.

There has been no judicial determination establishing ethnic cleansing in Judea and Samaria.

Indeed, ethnic cleansing is not itself a standalone crime under international law. The term has generally been used to describe the purposeful removal of an ethnic or religious population from a particular geographic area through violence or intimidation.

That requires evidence of purpose and intent, not merely evidence that violence or displacement occurred.

The Evidence Does Not Establish Miliband's Accusation

Individual Jews have allegedly committed documented crimes against Palestinians in Judea & Samaria. Those responsible should be prosecuted.

But that does not establish ethnic cleansing.

The Palestinian population of Judea and Samaria continues to grow. There is no evidence of a mass Palestinian exodus from the territory.

The largest recent displacement involved an Israeli military operation against heavily armed terrorist infrastructure, not the Jewish settlers Miliband accused.

Meanwhile, Palestinian terrorist organizations and individuals continue attempting shootings, bombings, stabbings and vehicle attacks against Israelis. Israeli security services say they prevented more than 1,300 significant attacks in 2025 alone.

That enormous security reality was absent from Miliband's characterization.

Even the UN human rights office used the cautious formulation that events “raise concerns” of ethnic cleansing.

Miliband erased that uncertainty and announced ethnic cleansing as a fact.

It isn't an established fact.

The evidence shows individual extremist crimes, localized Palestinian displacement, Palestinian terrorism and an ongoing Israeli counterterrorism campaign.

Turning that complicated reality into a declaration that “settler terrorists” are ethnically cleansing Palestinians goes considerably further than the evidence proves.