The Kingdom of Judah Rises Again: The Authority Appeals to Illusion and Israel Imposes Sovereignty

For more than two years, Israel has been rapidly moving towards imposing a new settlement reality in the West Bank, a reality that leaves no room even for the Palestinian illusion called "the two-state solution." The battle is no longer just for the land, but for the very concept itself: Israel is no longer discussing whether the West Bank is "disputed territory" or "occupied territory," but is treating it as an integral part of what it calls "the land of Israel" and is starting to entrench this definition through means of demolition, judaization, road construction, and the imposition of sovereignty.

The fiery statements from figures of religious Zionism and Likud reveal not only intentions but document an ongoing program. When Knesset member Tzvi Sukot says, "We are working everywhere, and the next challenge is sovereignty," he is not just launching a slogan but announcing the next phase after building dozens of settlements and expanding those already existing. Indeed, Netanyahu's government has unleashed plans to build 50 new settlements from early 2023 to mid-2025, raising the total number in the West Bank from 128 to 178, a 40% increase in less than two and a half years.

However, more alarming than the numbers is the methodology: what is happening is not a random series of steps, but an organized plan to tear the West Bank into isolated cantons that are unfit to be the nucleus of any Palestinian political entity. The construction of strategic settlement roads, the establishment of agricultural and pastoral outposts, and the demolition of Palestinian homes and infrastructure are merely tools for the same goal: undermining the existence of Palestinians and expanding the sphere of pure Jewish control.

Alongside the settlement expansion, the systematic violence by settlers against Palestinian villages is increasing, under the cover of the occupying army. Villages have become arenas of infiltration, terror, arson, and assault, where houses are attacked, crops are burned, and properties are destroyed, with physical assaults and cold-blooded killings occurring as in Turmus Ayya, Deir Dibwan, Huwwara, and elsewhere. This violence is not random but is a parallel tool to enforce forced displacement and empty the land of its original inhabitants, leaving "sovereignty" to the settler and the Zionist project.

In parallel, Israeli sources close to Netanyahu speak of his commitment to impose Israeli sovereignty over the entire West Bank, while a Knesset member from Likud openly states that "the image of victory must include the imposition of full sovereignty over Judea and Samaria." They are not maneuvering; they are declaring and meticulously showcasing their steps, while the Palestinian Authority is limiting itself to issuing condemnation statements or filing complaints to international bodies that have lost all effective influence.

Today, the Authority has only scattered patches of land that are unfit for establishing a state, or even a unified municipality, yet it continues to repeat the same refrain about the "settlement process" and "two-state solution" as if reality has not changed. As for Israel, it imposes new facts on the ground, building the Kingdom of Judah and Samaria while closing the chapter of the West Bank, not as a conflict area, but as an essential component of its national project.

In this reversed scene, the Palestinian Authority is turning into nothing more than a "complaints platform," screaming without being heard, recording objections of no effect, and dreaming of a state that has no geographic or legal presence on the ground. The question that powerfully presents itself today is: what is left for the Authority to negotiate over? What is the meaning of the existence of a political entity that possesses none of the components of a state and none of the liberation project to awaken the street?
The West Bank is being judaized, sovereignty is being imposed, and the future is being drawn... and the only thing the Authority has left is a pen to sign condemnation statements.