In June, 200 prominent Israeli leaders signed an open letter to their government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanding that it stop the attacks made against innocents in the West Bank by Israeli citizens. Among the signatories were two former prime ministers, over three dozen retired air force generals, the head of the nation’s foreign and domestic services, a Nobel Laureate, several rabbis and one of Israel’s most revered novelists, David Grossman.
In the face of Israel’s ongoing war in Palestine, such defiance towards the government and the actions it has pursued in the West Bank is rare. Several signees of the letter are considered “hawks” in the conflict and have previously demanded further action in the conflict. What brought them together, however, was a shared outcry of what they referred to as “Jewish terrorism”: the ongoing unlawful and violent displacement of Palestinian citizens, pursued by Israeli citizens building illegal settlements in sovereign territory. These Israeli citizens have been dubbed “settlers” by both their government and international legal authorities.
This term is highly inappropriate in the wake of the sustained violence and ethnic cleansing being undertaken by so-called “settlers.” In short, a stronger and more accurate word is needed to hold these criminals linguistically accountable.
The issue with the term arises from its inherently positive connotation, cemented in history by the expansionism of the 19th-century American empire. During the United States’ “Manifest Destiny” era, “settlers” was the word used to describe the pioneers who set out towards the untamed frontier, fantasized in the popular imagination as the “Wild West.”
Historically, the word “settler” has been associated with a sense of rugged independence, bravery and self-reliance, granted by the tales of the Oregon Trail, Davy Crockett and spaghetti westerns. For Israeli “settlers,” this term could not be further from the realities of the West Bank, where the actions of these renegade citizens have seen expansive state support. In an April 2025 visit to an illegal Israeli settlement, two Israeli ministers — Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strock — distributed 19 state-funded all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), cameras and night-vision equipment to “settlers” in the Hebron area. The ministers went on to assure the “settlers” they had the support of the state government in spreading Zionism across the West Bank; the project was coordinated by the Israel Defense Forces.
Similarly, after the October 7th attacks, the Israeli government distributed military fatigues and assault rifles to its “settlers,” making them harder to distinguish from figures of legal authority to indigenous Palestinians. In the West Bank, there is no stalwart individualism or idealistic resourcefulness to be found. There is only state-supported colonialism, with citizens being used as agents for the takeover and annexation of a foreign territory.
Further issue with the term “settler” is taken with its placement in the Terra Nullius mythos of empty land. Traditional narratives frame settlers as builders who clear wilderness, establish farms and build towns within the context of an untamed land. These settlers are often depicted in propaganda as bringers of civilization, order and light. A prominent example in history of this trend is John Gast’s infamous “American Progress” painting, which has become synonymous with the genocide of the Indigenous peoples of the west.
Once again, this definition could not be further from the realities of occupied Palestine. Countless cases have categorized Israeli “settlers” as stealing and occupying land, homes and ranches in an unadventurous crime that finds itself similar in spirit to violent armed squatting. This historical trend has been followed since the creation of the state of Israel. During the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, Zionist paramilitaries and the Israeli military dispossessed and estimated 750,000 Palestinians of their land in a violent cleansing referred to in Arabic as “the Nakba,” or “the Catastrophe.” In the 80 years since, no civilization has been built by these violent acts. All that has changed has been the theft of centuries of family history and cultural ties to land stolen by “settlers” and the Israeli military.
“Terrorist” has begun to enter the public lexicon as a replacement for the word “settler.” On Saturday, The United States ambassador to Israel condemned “settler” violence as an act of terror. The “Jewish terrorism” described by June’s letter has previously been popularized by numerous Palestinian rights advocates. The definition fits. The United States Department of Homeland Security describes a “terrorist” as any individual participating in terrorism, defined as “a premeditated threat or act of violence against people, property, environmental, or economic targets to induce fear or to intimidate, coerce, or affect a government or civilian population.” Whether this term will be applied at the international level remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that the term “settler” must go.