In March 2002, during the height of the Second Intifada, filmmaker Oliver Stone was interviewing Benjamin Netanyahu when an explosion was heard in Jerusalem. Stone looked toward the blast and asked: “What’s up there? A settlement?”
Netanyahu’s answer cut through the entire illusion: “Everything is a settlement to them. This is a settlement called Jerusalem.”
The explosion was a suicide bombing at the entrance to a supermarket in Jerusalem’s Kiryat HaYovel neighborhood. The terrorist, Ayat al-Akhras, killed two Israelis — 17-year-old Rachel Levy and security guard Haim Smadar — and wounded 28 others. Smadar’s actions reportedly prevented an even larger massacre by stopping her from entering the crowded supermarket.
That moment exposed the central lie behind the “settlements” narrative. The attack was not in some remote hilltop outpost. It was in Jerusalem. For the Palestinian terror movement, the issue was never only 1967 lines or specific communities in Judea and Samaria. The target was Israel itself.