Armed colonists burn, beat, and kill with near-total impunity – because their violence serves a larger system of land theft and expulsion

Almost daily, there are updates on brutal attacks by armed Israeli settlers – really, colonists – against Palestinians. They shoot or ferociously beat – sometimes to the point of murder – Palestinian civilians, male and female, young and old, including entire families.

These attacks have been occurring for decades. I’ve written about them many times, including what I saw in different regions of the West Bank during my eight months there in 2007. Back then, the violence was already horrific. Now, the attacks are exponentially more frequent.…