Report (Peace Now) 2025... When Geography Defeats the Illusions of Settlement

For more than three decades, the official Palestinian political discourse has not ceased to cling to the option of a political settlement as the only path to end the occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state along the borders of June 4, 1967. Despite the successive Israeli governments, the collapse of negotiation rounds, and the escalation of settlement activity, the official discourse has remained based on a fixed assumption that the political process, no matter how stalled, will one day return to produce the solution for which the Oslo Accords were established. However, the question that now imposes itself is no longer about when negotiations will resume, but whether the land on which those negotiations are supposed to take place still exists at all. This is precisely where the exceptional importance of the annual report issued by the Israeli Peace Now movement about settlement activity during the year 2025 arises, not because it presents new numbers about settlement activity, but because it reveals, from within Israel itself, that the project upon which the settlement process was built is being systematically dismantled on the ground, while the Palestinian political discourse still treats it as if it were still viable.

The significance of this report lies in the fact that it does not stem from a Palestinian institution or an international entity, but rather from an Israeli movement that has historically been known for its opposition to settlement, which gives its data doubled political value. The figures it provides cannot be treated merely as abstract statistical material, but rather as an Israeli testimony to the nature of the project being implemented by the Israeli governments in the West Bank. When an Israeli entity confirms that the year 2025 saw the approval of 54 new settlements, the ratification of constructing 27,941 settlement units, the issuance of tenders for the creation of another 9,629 units, the establishment of 86 new outposts, including 60 pastoral outposts, the granting of 27 settlements additional areas of influence, the demolition of 1,269 Palestinian structures, and the displacement of 22 Palestinian communities, along with the documentation of 1,828 attacks carried out by settlers, we are not faced with scattered numbers, but with a comprehensive political tableau that reveals that Israel is no longer managing a temporary occupation awaiting a political settlement, but rather is implementing a gradual project to impose its sovereignty over the land and end any possibility for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state...

Israeli governments have historically justified settlement activity as an issue that can be discussed in final status negotiations, while utilizing the time to expand settlements and create new facts on the ground. Today, the numbers revealed by the Peace Now report show that this phase has ended. Settlement activity is no longer merely a negotiating card to improve conditions; it has become the policy itself. The announcement of establishing 54 new settlements within one year reflects not only urban expansion but also indicates the transition of the settlement project to a new level, where the settlement becomes a tool for producing sovereignty, not just a population cluster. Every new settlement is followed by roads, infrastructure, services, military areas, local councils, and planning authorities, which practically means annexing a new part of the Palestinian land to the Israeli system, even without an official announcement... The same applies to the ratification of constructing 27,941 new settlement units, one of the highest numbers recorded in recent years. This figure does not reflect ordinary population growth; rather, it reveals a policy aimed at solidifying a broad Jewish demographic presence within the West Bank, making any future talk of evacuating settlements more complex and improbable. Every new settlement unit represents a new family, a new school, a new service network, new governmental investments, and a greater economic and social connection between the settlements and the Israeli state. This transforms the settlement from a negotiable project into a part of the internal structure of the state, defended by governments, parties, and society as a national interest... If the establishment of settlements reflects the horizontal expansion of the settlement project, then granting 27 settlements new areas of influence reveals another more serious dimension. These areas do not limit themselves to construction boundaries but extend into vast expanses of open land that are placed under the authority of settlement councils, denying Palestinians the opportunity to utilize or develop them in the future. Thus, Israel no longer controls only what it has built upon but also what could be built upon in the future, reflecting a transition of the settlement project from controlling locations to controlling the entire geographical area...

Perhaps the most dangerous revelation of the report is the increasing shift towards pastoral outposts, where 60 pastoral outposts were established within one year out of 86 new outposts. Although these outposts may seem small in terms of population, they today represent the most efficient tools for settlement in controlling land. A limited number of settlers with herds of livestock are sufficient to impose control over thousands of dunams of pastures and open land, preventing Palestinians from accessing them, before later transforming them into settlement areas. Thus, the pastoral outpost has become a tool for quiet annexation, achieving what traditional settlements needed with fewer resources and lighter political costs...

It was not coincidental that this expansion was coupled with the displacement of 22 Palestinian communities during the same year. Displacement no longer occurs through direct military orders, but rather through creating conditions that make life impossible. Preventing herders from accessing pastures, controlling water sources, repeated assaults, and constant threats are all means that compel residents to leave forcibly, while Israel remains capable of claiming it has not carried out any mass deportations. Thus, displacement becomes an undeclared policy, yet highly effective in emptying the land of its Palestinian inhabitants... This scene is completed with the demolition of 1,269 Palestinian structures in area C. The demolitions here are not a legal measure related to construction violations, as claimed by the occupation authorities, but a political tool for reshaping geography. The Palestinian is denied the opportunity to obtain a permit, then his home is demolished under the pretext of building without a permit, while settlements continue to expand with complete governmental support. Thus, the law becomes a means to seize land, and demolition becomes the flip side of settlement...

Furthermore, the recording of 1,828 settler attacks within one year, resulting in the martyrdom of nine Palestinians and injuring 838 others, confirms that settler violence is no longer a marginal phenomenon that can be separated from state policies. Many of these assaults end with farmers being expelled from their lands or prevented from accessing them or subsequently converting the lands into settlement outposts. Thus, the settler's role complements the role of the official institution in achieving the same result, which is to expand Israeli control and reduce the Palestinian presence.

When these numbers are read in one context, it becomes difficult to talk about the peace process stumbling due to the absence of a partner or due to changes in Israeli governments. What the facts reveal is that Israel has used the years of settlement itself to reshape the West Bank in a manner that makes establishing a Palestinian state increasingly impossible with each passing year. For successive Israeli governments, negotiations were a political cover allowing them to gain time while bulldozers and settlements were doing the real work on the ground. Thus, settlement was not a result of the failure of the settlement process; rather, it was the tool that led to its failure in the first place.

Therefore, the real crisis lies in the continued official Palestinian leadership's treatment of the Oslo Accords as the only possible reference for a solution, despite the facts revealed even by Israeli reports confirming that the land on which those agreements were established is undergoing daily reshaping. The settlement has not only stalled, but its geographic and political foundations have been systematically undermined. Thus, the continued bet on reviving the political process without a profound critical review reflects not so much a commitment to a political option as an inability to grasp the scale of the transformation imposed by the settlement project...

The most dangerous revelation of the Peace Now report is not that settlements are expanding; this is a fact known to everyone, but that it provides evidence that Israel has transitioned from managing a temporary occupation to managing a permanent annexation project, while the official Palestinian discourse continues to talk about resuming negotiations based on the assumption of a negotiable land. Between the assumption and reality, the gap widens year after year, until the question posed today is not how to revive the settlement process, but whether Israel has left, through its settlement project, any realistic basis on which this settlement can be built. In this lies the most important message carried by the report, as well as an urgent call for a comprehensive Palestinian review that not only reassesses political action tools but also reconsiders the assumptions that have governed the national project over the past three decades.