The Burden of 2025 on the West Bank

A report from the Mitvim Institute (the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policy) confirms that targeting the West Bank has remained a central item on the agenda of the current Israeli government, in line with its establishment at the end of 2022.

 

Reports from various respectable Israeli sources have highlighted the burden of the past year on the West Bank. Notably, alongside the genocidal war in Gaza, areas of Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 have been included. This annexation aims to change the character of Israeli control over the West Bank, alongside entrenching the reality of apartheid that solidifies Jewish supremacy and pushes the Palestinians residing in the area towards a limited and diminished geographical space. Numerous steps have been taken by the Israeli government since it began its term three years ago that alter the face of the West Bank and the structure of Israeli control within it. In this context, reports particularly mention the following steps: the appointment of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as an additional minister in the Ministry of Defense, granting him extensive powers from the Israeli army leadership; allocating massive budgets to expand settlements and improve infrastructure and quality of life for settlers; legitimizing random outposts; announcing the allocation of state lands and natural reserves for settlement expansion; turning a blind eye to settler violence and the non-enforcement of law; and the maltreatment of Palestinian communities and groups, which leads to their forcible displacement from their homes.

Secondly, it is noted that northern West Bank continues to be a primary target for Israeli army operations due to its proximity to large Israeli residential centers within the "Green Line" and adjacent settlements along the contact lines. This has also been confirmed by the newspaper "Israel Hayom" in its summary of the main developments of the past year. Thirdly, the author of this piece previously noted that, following the statements of Israeli Security Minister Israel Katz and the rhetoric of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the first thing that stands out is their confirmation of a new Israeli strategy towards the West Bank. According to what was affirmed, for instance, by the former head of the Israeli National Security Council, Meir Ben Shabbat, political directives require an increase in military operations, the arrest of activists, the destruction of "terroristic" infrastructures, and the confiscation of weapons and the eradication of production facilities. In his opinion, the steps taken in the northern West Bank are heading in the right direction and should be intensified; because the "terror" centers in the West Bank "that are acting as Gaza, should become like Gaza," referring to the fate that has befallen the region characterized by displacement and complete destruction.

Regarding deterrence measures, Ben Shabbat emphasizes that they should not be gradually applied but initiated forcefully, through home demolitions, expulsions, forced displacement, confiscation of funds, and punishment of employers and collaborators (!)

Fourthly, there is another step among the actions taken by the Israeli government to change the face of the West Bank and the structure of Israeli control within it, which is the maltreatment of Palestinian residents with the aim of forcing them to relocate. Recently, several Israeli ministers have made statements calling for measures that exceed mere maltreatment. Among these statements was Smotrich's remark during a meeting he held with settler leaders in the West Bank recently, indicating that he devised a plan that would make the Palestinian villages and cities of: hotel, Nablus, and Jenin, resemble Jabalia in northern Gaza, so that the city of Kfar Saba (in central Israel) does not turn into the settlement of "Kfar Aza" at the border with Gaza, as he expressed. This prompted Israeli human rights expert Itai Mack to state that Smotrich's repeated calls to eradicate Palestinian villages and towns—beginning with his call to erase the Palestinian town of Hawara—are exactly akin to the incitement that fueled the perpetration of genocide against the Rohingya ethnic group in Myanmar (formerly Burma), and the genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda.