Why Israel has done so little to rein in spiraling settler violence against Palestinians

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra have huddled inside their homes for days on end, unable to leave because of the threat posed by Israeli settlers. The Israeli military, which over the past three years has displayed staggering military and intelligence capabilities from Beirut to Tehran, has yet to fully remove the settlers from the area of the village, about an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv. The United States, which provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, has issued a scathing rebuke, perhaps because one of the homeowners is a Palestinian American living in Ohio.

Ambassador Mike Huckabee referred to the settlers as “terrorists.” Israel’s defense minister dismissed them as radical misfits — “boys on the hills.” In reality, they are the tip of the spear for a much larger movement, supported by successive Israeli governments and supercharged under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that is aimed at cementing Israeli rule over the territory and preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. Settlements built over decades now house over 500,000 Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for a future state. Since then, the Israeli government has built nearly 150 settlements that are home to well over 500,000 Jewish settlers.

Many of the settlements resemble fully developed suburbs, with apartment blocks, shopping malls, parks and industrial zones. Radical settlers have established hundreds of additional outposts without government authorization, while still enjoying protection from the Israeli military and often other public services. Netanyahu’s government, the most nationalist and religious in Israel’s history, has boasted of establishing over 100 new settlements.

On Thursday, as the army deployed in Qusra, members of his Cabinet celebrated the rebuilding of a settlement that had been dismantled in 2005 as part of the Gaza withdrawal. Israel’s current government and much of its political class view the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and see the settlements as key to maintaining security. Most of the international community views all settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace.

Separate laws for settlers and Palestinians The roughly 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli …