Violence must be punished, but the settler is not the terrorist

Progressista: Let’s start with something simple: violent settlers are a serious problem. Assaults, arson and intimidation against Palestinians in the West Bank cannot be downplayed. If a state wishes to call itself democratic, it must prosecute those who use violence, even when that violence comes from within its own borders.

Conservative: I agree. And in fact, if you want to understand what the correct stance should be, don’t listen to Netanyahu’s supporters. Listen to one of his opponents: Yair Lapid. The leader of the opposition made a very clear statement in May: “Settler terror is terror”. Settler terrorism is terrorism.

Progressive: Right. Sanctions, then.

Conservative: Against those who commit or organise acts of violence, yes. That is what the European Union has done. In May 2026, the 27 member states approved new sanctions against three extremist settlers and four organisations that support them. Italy also took part in the decision. The sanctions target those responsible for abuses, not an entire group of people.

Progressista: But the problem isn’t just the violence. The settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal by the vast majority of the international community. You can’t talk about the settlers as if they were living in just any neighbourhood in Tel Aviv.

Conservative: Of course not. But you cannot jump from ‘the settlement is illegal’ to ‘anyone living there is an extremist’, or even a terrorist. That would amount to guilt by association. There are ideological settlers, extremists and violent individuals. However, there are also families who have been living for decades in the large urban blocks, people born there, and people who moved there for economic reasons. Lumping everyone together does not help the cause of justice or peace.

Progressista: That presence, however, did not just appear out of the blue.

Conservative: Exactly. The West Bank was captured by Israel from Jordan during the Six-Day War in 1967. The settlements have grown amidst an unresolved dispute: some were established under Labour governments, others were expanded by the right-wing, and others are illegal outposts even under Israeli law. To refer to ‘the settlers’ as if they were a single entity is in itself a mistake.

Progressista: But a section of the Israeli right wing is using the settlements to make the establishment of a Palestinian state more difficult.

Conservative: Yes, it would be foolish to deny it. But the Oslo Accords did not stipulate that all settlements had to be dismantled: they deferred the issue – along with the borders, Jerusalem and the refugees – to the final-status negotiations.

Progressista: A compromise that never materialised.

Conservative: And this is where we must avoid a one-sided narrative. It is incorrect to say that everything depended on the Palestinians’ ‘no’s’: but it is equally false to recount thirty years of diplomacy as if the Palestinians had never had any real opportunities to achieve statehood. There have been offers, rejections, hesitations, terrorism, intifadas, changes of government and the expansion of settlements.

Progressista: So what?

Conservative: So there is one fact that is almost always overlooked. The Clinton parameters of 2000, designed to bring about a sovereign and viable Palestinian state, did not envisage that every Israeli would have to be driven beyond the Green Line. They envisaged that the main settlement blocs could be incorporated into Israel, with territorial swaps to compensate the Palestinian state. The formula was not ‘get rid of all the settlers’: it was negotiated borders, some settlement blocs to Israel, and equivalent land for the Palestinians.

Progressista: Today, however, we are much further away from that solution.

Conservative: True. If you label even a settler who has never attacked anyone a ‘terrorist’, you are emboldening the genuine extremist. And if you portray every settlement as proof that compromise is impossible, you are ignoring the fact that the negotiators had already identified a principle: land swaps and a distinction between large blocs and settlements to be evacuated.

Progressista: So what would the line be?

Conservative: Simple. Violent settlers? Punish them. Organisations that fund violence and intimidation? Sanction them. Outposts that are illegal even by Israel’s standards? Dismantle them. Expansions deliberately designed to prevent a Palestinian state? Oppose them politically. But ‘settler’ is not synonymous with ‘extremist’. ‘Extremist’ is not synonymous with ‘terrorist’.

Progressive: It almost seems like a centrist position.

Conservative: No. It is a radically anti-extremist stance. It takes Lapid seriously when he says that settler terrorism is terrorism. But it also takes the word ‘terrorism’ seriously: if you use it for everything, it eventually loses all meaning.

It would be foolish to deny that a section of the Israeli right uses the settlements to make the establishment of a Palestinian state more difficult, but the Oslo Accords did not stipulate that all settlements had to be dismantled. A discussion on what can be condemned without causing confusion