West Bank: Settler Terrorism as a Tool for Gradual Annexation and Imposing Sovereignty

As the world is preoccupied with the American-Israeli war against Iran and the regional tensions associated with the confrontation, a profound change is accelerating on the ground in the occupied West Bank, occurring away from the spotlight. While attention is focused on war fronts, the Israeli occupation government is exploiting this international distraction to deepen policies of land control in the West Bank through a mix of governmental decisions, settlement expansion, and organized settler terrorism against Palestinians.

The so-called settler terrorism, as referred to in the official discourse of the Israeli occupation state, is no longer a marginal phenomenon or acts of vandalism carried out by a limited number of hill youth; the data and accumulated statistics in recent years, along with investigations published by Israeli press and human rights organizations—Israeli, Palestinian, and international—clearly indicate that these assaults have become part of a broader political and security system that is effectively reshaping the geographic and demographic reality in the occupied West Bank.

The investigation published by "Haaretz" last Friday paints a worrying picture of the collapse of the security and legal oversight system, which had partially regulated these assaults. However, what is happening cannot be understood as a transient phenomenon, but as an old policy that has deepened clearly with the rise of the current right-wing settler government.

According to testimonies from officers and reserve soldiers who served in the West Bank, settler terrorism has now transformed from merely exceptional incidents into a near-daily pattern. In many cases, soldiers arrive at the sites of attacks after they occur, only to find themselves facing a clash between settlers and Palestinians, which often ends with the arrest of Palestinians or the use of force against them.

But the problem is much deeper than mere security negligence. Settler terrorism is no longer a random act; it has become a field tool within a broader strategy aimed at imposing new realities on the ground. Instead of dozens of hill youth, as the occupation government claims, the investigation speaks of hundreds involved in the assaults, operating within a broad support network that includes settler outposts, settlement farms, and regional councils in the West Bank.

Some of these groups even publish monthly reports about their activities, boasting about burning Palestinian homes and vehicles, destroying olive trees, and assaulting residents of neighboring villages. This reflects an unprecedented degree of organization and implicit legitimization of this type of terrorism.

Worse still is the increasing overlap between settlers and the military system. Some participants in the assaults move in military or paramilitary vehicles, wear parts of military uniforms, and carry weapons obtained through regional defense systems, and with the expansion of arming settlers in recent years, the line between armed civilians and the Israeli army has become more blurred.

In this sense, settlers are gradually transforming into a paramilitary force operating in the field, enjoying army protection and sometimes operating under its direct gaze.

Politically, this transformation cannot be understood without looking at the deep changes within the current Israeli occupation government. The Finance Minister and the Minister in the Defense Ministry responsible for civilian administration in the West Bank, Bezalel Smotrich, is clearly pushing for the implementation of his vision known as the "Decisive Plan," which he proposed in 2017.

This plan is based on expanding Israeli control over areas classified as "C", which constitute about 60% of the West Bank, while keeping Palestinians confined within population pockets in areas "A" and "B". Within this framework, settler terrorism becomes a field means to impose a new demographic reality.

Frequent attacks on Palestinian villages, burning crops, sabotaging water sources, and preventing herders from accessing pastures are not merely isolated incidents, but tools aimed at creating a hostile environment for the Palestinian population, especially in rural areas, the Jordan Valley, and southern Hebron.

Conversely, the capacity or willingness of Israeli law enforcement institutions to confront this phenomenon has diminished. The occupation police in the West Bank, under the influence of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, face increasing criticism for their reluctance to investigate settler assaults. The role of the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) in monitoring what is known as Jewish terrorism has also diminished.

However, what appears to be negligence often reflects an alignment with the current government trends. The Israeli army, which previously described some settlers' practices as Jewish terrorism, now finds itself part of a political and security reality that pushes it to avoid confrontation with the settlers.

Additionally, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's decisions to cancel administrative detention orders against settlers, despite their limited usage, reflect a political trend that restricts legal deterrent tools regarding these assaults.

These transformations are also reflected within the military institution itself. Approximately two hundred reserve soldiers signed a letter to the military leadership warning of the erosion of the values that the army is supposed to uphold and the involvement of some soldiers in violence against Palestinians or in overlooking it.

However, this moral discourse clashes with a different reality on the ground. The army itself conducts daily incursions and arrests in Palestinian towns and villages, providing protection for settlers during or after their attacks. This contradiction between discourse and practice reveals the limits of the military institution's ability or willingness to confront settler terrorism.

What is forming today in the West Bank is not merely an escalation in settler terrorism but a gradual re-engineering of the political and geographic reality. Settlers move with near-complete freedom, while the security apparatus appears hesitant or unable to control them, while the political leadership pushes for expanding land control and implementing policies of gradual annexation.

In this sense, settler terrorism becomes a tool within a broader policy to reshape the demographic map of the West Bank. It is a systematic and slow process aimed at pushing Palestinians into shrinking isolated population pockets, in contrast to the continuous expansion of the settlement project and the establishment of a new reality that serves Israel’s strategic and political objectives.

In light of the devastating war on the Gaza Strip and the escalating regional tensions, the West Bank appears as a parallel ground for a profound change taking place away from the lights. While the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza persists, the policies of land control are accelerating in the West Bank through a mix of governmental decisions, settler terrorism, and institutional complicity, to solidify a reality based on Israeli superiority and the effective annexation of lands.

The final result is not merely settlement expansion, but the entrenchment of a system based on gradual annexation, racial superiority, and the slow expulsion of Palestinians from their land, while the official occupation institutions and their security and political branches remain present to support and directly participate in this project.