A new Israeli security doctrine recasts settler violence, long regarded by the establishment as destabilizing, as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Settler leaders are now seeking to solidify this new status quo in the West Bank ahead of elections.
Israel’s “decisive” plan to annex the West Bank is coming to a head as the Israeli government pushes to depopulate Palestinian villages throughout the territory. Once a hub of resistance, the West Bank’s Palestinians now find themselves defenseless.
Hebron’s Palestinian municipality held planning authority over the city for nearly 30 years. Israel revoked it this month, then swiftly approved a yeshiva in the Old City — redrawing who controls the city’s land and future.
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has vowed to wrest control of the ancient Solomon’s Pools site from the Palestinian Authority. Palestinians are responding by reclaiming the site and resisting Israeli efforts to seize more of the West Bank.
As countries around the world recognize a Palestinian state, Israel is doing everything it can to prevent the possibility of any future state. One way it plans on doing that is through financial strangulation.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich released a map proposing to annex over 80% of the West Bank. He’s not far off from the rest of the Israeli political establishment — even the “pragmatic” opposition.
Israel is reviving a settlement plan that would annex a strategic tract of land east of Jerusalem and effectively split the West Bank in two, “burying” the possibility of any future Palestinian state in the territory.
The Knesset’s motion supporting the annexation of the West Bank signals Israel’s intention of formalizing what it has already been doing at an accelerated pace since October 7 — establishing total Israeli control over Palestinian land.
Israel is using the war on Iran to further its colonization and annexation of the West Bank, turning Palestinian communities into caged enclaves.
Israel is expanding its “Iron Wall” offensive in the West Bank as it approves plans to separate the northern West Bank from the south. The plan is an accelerated prelude to Israel’s expected annexation of the West Bank.