Last October, an Israeli settler in the West Bank set a Palestinian home on fire. In January, a mob of settlers chased a truck driver and two of his workers, sending all three to the hospital. And last fall, a settler shot a Palestinian in the stomach in front of an Israeli soldier. Yet the authorities have not charged any of these settlers — or others who have attacked West Bank residents — with crimes.

These stories come from a multiyear investigation that my colleagues Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti have just published in The Times Magazine. In it, they document how violent factions within the settler movement have repeatedly received protection from the Israeli government despite attacks against Palestinians — and even against Israeli officials who tried to challenge the settlers.

“A long history of crime without punishment,” Ronen and Mark write, “threatens not only Palestinians living in the occupied territories but also the State of Israel itself.” Their story, they explain, “is an account of a sometimes criminal nationalistic movement that has been allowed to operate with impunity and gradually move from the fringes to the mainstream of Israeli society.”

The government has accepted settler violence for decades, leaving many West Bank Palestinians feeling frightened and helpless. An Israeli government report in 1982 documented the problem, to no effect. So did later reports in 2005 and 2012.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister for most of the past three decades, has played a central role. He regained power in 2022 by inviting the radical parts of the settler movement into his government. One of these radicals is Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, who in 1995 vaguely threatened the life of Yitzhak Rabin, then the prime minister, who was trying to restrain the settlers. Weeks later, a right-wing nationalist murdered Rabin.

In today’s newsletter, I want to tell about some of the key points from Ronen and Mark’s story and also put it the larger context of the war in Gaza.