Israeli extremists. Some of the ultra Zionists and settlers are very violent and some are qserial killers. Under Netanyahu, the Israeli Army increasingly takes the side of settlers, even when they are engaging in illegal or violent behavior, according to Palestinians, Israeli human rights groups, news accounts and others. “The army routinely accompanies settlers in attacks,” a U.N. commission reported. What all this means in practice is misery for people like Abdel-Majeed Hassan, a Palestinian farmer in his 70s whom I’ve visited periodically for many years. He is a soft-spoken shepherd in the village of Qusra, deeply proud that all 12 of his children attended university. “My sheep sent my children to university,” he told me during an April visit as he herded his flock. Over the years, settlers have shot Hassan in the leg, he said, partly burned his home (twice), stolen his sheep, invaded his home, blocked his access to his olive trees, tried to burn his sheep alive, prevented him from accessing the spring where he drew water for his animals, threatened his grandchildren, destroyed five of his vehicles and hurled rocks at him more times than he can count, according to accounts by him, fellow villagers and human rights monitors. One development that makes a clampdown on extremist settlers more possible is that growing numbers of prominent Israelis are acknowledging the savagery of the attacks and demanding that the government crack down. Two former prime ministers and other former senior figures signed a joint letter this summer calling on Netanyahu to “immediately take all measures necessary to terminate the Jewish terror that has been widespread” in the West Bank. Tamir Pardo, a former head of the Mossad security agency, told Israeli television after touring West Bank villages: “My mother was a Holocaust survivor, and what I saw reminded me of the events that happened against Jews in the last century.” Jonatan Shimshoni, a retired Israeli brigadier general, put it this way: “Israel is now using its power to start ridding the West Bank of Palestinians.” Even Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, condemned settler attacks as “a wave of terrible violence that is being carried out by an anarchist mob.” The Trump administration is notably soft on this kind of terrorism, even when Palestinian Americans are injured or killed. That happened in February: Settlers killed a 19-year-old American citizen in the West Bank. But in the United States, West Bank attacks by settlers are further draining Israel and Netanyahu of support. An Economist/YouGov survey last month found that Americans by a 22-percentage-point margin favor arresting Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza. And attitude shifts are evident not just among Democrats: An Emerson poll found that two-thirds of independent voters believe America gives too much aid to Israel. My colleague Thomas L. Friedman has aptly called Netanyahu not just the worst leader in Israel’s history but also “maybe in all of Jewish history.” And that’s a lot of history. What I know personally from my reporting on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza for many years is that countless lives have been destroyed to serve Netanyahu’s political career, and that at least until recently we Americans haven’t reflected adequately on our own complicity. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/opinion/israeli-settlers-palestinians-west-bank.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
