Cambridge Dictionary:

Settler - (noun) - a person who goes to live in a new place where few people have lived before

What do you call people who murder, burn or bulldoze homes to ground, steal property, and use terror to achieve their ends? There has to be a better word for it.

So maybe the term "settler" as defined by Cambridge Dictionary has never been accurate.

Plenty of people lived where European "settlers" "went to live" in what became the U.S. Those European settlers murdered, burned, stole property, and used terror to achieve their ends.

I agree that we need a better word for it.

Or would be called that in almost any other context. They are supported and granted impunity by the state apparatus and the official military.

All over the world leaders are doing horrible things because the U.S. president has no credibility and won't stop them.

There are no controls on Netanyahu's actions now. As Kamala Harris warned, "no guardrails."

Trump posts smirking memes and his goons laugh.

...Israel would call it Hamas-backed terrorism and it would draw a military attack. Instead: "While Israel usually prosecutes Palestinians under military law, settlers are typically charged under civil law, if they are prosecuted at all."

I get that Hamas attacked first in 2023. But that doesn't mean you throw out the rule of law. By allowing Israeli settlers to conduct terrorism against Palestinians, you create a whole new generation of disgruntled Palestinian people that will lead to more terrorism in the future. It's a cycle.

whose homes are being attacked fight back. So, yeah....that's what they do.

The sad part is that Israel has never been called out on their MANY atrocities!
Years ago I supported Israel. Then the more I saw and read I turned. Eff Israel.

setting off the war in Gaza, and they have since become the new normal across much of the West Bank. With the world’s attention on Gaza, extremist settlers in the West Bank are carrying out one of the most violent and effective campaigns of intimidation and land grabbing since Israel occupied the territory during the Arab-Israeli war of 1967.

.... For this article, reporters for The Times visited five villages recently attacked by settlers, reviewed security footage of several episodes and cellphone footage of others, and spoke with residents of the afflicted villages, as well as Israeli military officers and settler leaders.

... Since the start of 2023, settlers have built more than 130 outposts, mostly in rural areas of the West Bank, that are technically unauthorized but often tolerated by the Israeli government. That is more than they had built in the previous two decades combined, according to research by Peace Now, an Israeli group that backs the creation of a Palestinian state.

.... The problem has been made worse by the Israeli military’s failure to prevent either the attacks or the settlers’ construction of unauthorized encampments across the territory. A Times investigation last year found that the Israeli authorities had for decades shown substantial leniency to Jews involved in terrorist attacks against Arabs, a dynamic that has only worsened since October 2023. In one emblematic case, a settler was filmed shooting a Palestinian in the presence of an Israeli soldier, yet the shooter was questioned for only 20 minutes and never arrested..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/world/middleeast/west-bank-israel-settler-attacks.html?unlocked_article_code=1.eE8.AugO.c6cmJsvFMWDG&smid=url-share