With army-protected Jewish extremists running riot through Palestinian towns, and the deeply unpopular, US-backed PA barely holding on to its reins, the West Bank is primed for a seismic explosion that will transform into Israel’s next war front.
Alongside the military assault on Gaza, extremist religious parties in Israel’s government coalition seized a strategic opportunity after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood to launch a systematic displacement agenda in the occupied West Bank.
This stealthy policy was facilitated by several factors, notably, the escalation of settler violence post-7 October, increased political pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the vise-like leverage that settler-extremists enjoy over Israel’s ruling coalition and key governmental institutions, particularly the Ministry of Finance
As an example, nearly $250 million of the national budget earmarked for war expenses in December 2023 was directed by Israel’s radical Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich toward settlement projects in the West Bank.
Immediately after its announcement, the EU criticized the settlement-funding provisions of the revised budget, rightly arguing that the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and the forced displacement of Palestinians undermine security in the occupied West Bank, and will not make Israel safer.
The silent war on the West Bank
In response, Tel Aviv significantly tightened its grip on West Bank Palestinians. This involved obstructing Palestinian workers from employment in Israel and the finance minister’s refusal to transfer Palestinian clearance funds to the Palestinian Authority (PA) to pay Gaza’s worker salaries.
On the military front, Israeli has launched a frenzied campaign on the West Bank since 7 October, resulting in the death of hundreds and arrest of over 6,000 Palestinians. Acts of violence, forced displacement of civilians, and armed settler attacks – enabled by weapon transfers from Israel’s extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir – escalated dramatically across the occupied territory.
Ben Gvir, who fronts the hidden agenda of nationalist and religious parties in the coalition government, used the Al-Aqsa Flood events to displace 25 Palestinian Bedouin communities, including 266 families in the eastern foothills near Ramallah and the Jordan Valley.
Already this year, under pressure from his extremist allies, Netanyahu has halted demolitions of illegal Jewish outposts in the West Bank, going against the recommendation of Defense Minister Yoav Galant who is trying to ease tensions in the West Bank while conflict rages on Israel’s northern and southern fronts.
In early January, Smotrich and Ben Gvir publicly called for the displacement of Gazans to make way for the return of Zionist settlers to the Gaza Strip for the first time since their 2005 expulsion. Their belligerent comments sparked a new rift with the US administration of Joe Biden, which has sharply criticized “inflammatory and irresponsible” rhetoric from Tel Aviv.
Blinken’s mission in Ramallah
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent visit with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas was not primarily focused on post-war discussions on Gaza, as Washington has widely suggested, but on curbing a West Bank conflagration.
The occupied Palestinian territory is today a ticking time bomb that could explode at any moment, over any incident, small or large, and which could jeopardize frantic US attempts to defuse and manage the military escalation on Lebanon’s borders.
Blinken’s key objective was to exert pressure on the PA, which governs the West Bank, to prevent and quash any popular Palestinian uprising that could lead to the opening of a third war front against Tel Aviv.
Last week, Israeli security and military authorities intensified their warnings to cabinet members, urging Netanyahu to de-escalate tensions to avert a third intifada, which the Israeli army may struggle to contain while heavily distracted with Gaza, Lebanon, and the significant economic impact from Yemen’s shipping blockade.
US and Israel are not on the same page
The US is up against a highly-pressured timeline as it gears up for the upcoming presidential elections. Despite its efforts to find temporary, band-aid solutions for the regional unrest unleashed by Tel Aviv’s war on Gaza, Washington finds itself increasingly entangled in a West Asian quagmire, courtesy of its recent airstrikes on Yemen.
What greatly bothers the White House is that its Israeli ally appears to be frustratingly unconcerned with this American dilemma, with Netanyahu far more focused on his personal political future and the radical agenda of his coalition partners — an agenda not aligned with overall US interests.
Despite persistent warnings about the volatile situation in the West Bank, the Israeli prime minister refuses to pressure his allies, fearful of their repeated threats to abandon his coalition government.
The US cannot afford a West Bank military escalation because of the major repercussions this may have on its post-war proposals for Gaza and on its domestic political scene. The PA, now deeply unpopular among its own Palestinian constituents, is also a crucial component of US projects in West Asia, many overlapping with various regional agendas.
Since the start of the current war, the US has sought to involve the PA in the post-war political rehabilitation of Gaza, in alignment with several Arab and western countries, as a preliminary step toward resuming negotiations for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.
The path to a ‘just peace’ has become a key element in discussions between Washington and Riyadh, in which the latter insists on tangible Israeli steps toward a two-state solution before considering a full normalization with Tel Aviv.
While the ever-elusive, two-state option was initially a secondary consideration in normalization talks, Israel’s brutal and unprecedented military assault on Gaza, in which over 22,000 mostly women and children have been killed, has now become a central component for Saudi Arabia.
Riyadh has its own motivations, both internal and external, and is firmly adhering to the two-state path. With growing discontent in the US over Biden’s handling of the region’s crisis, the White House is in need of a diplomatic breakthrough in West Asia to secure some electoral gains. Recent polls, however, which will almost certainly be exacerbated by last week’s unprovoked strikes on Yemen, continue to indicate US voter dissatisfaction (57 percent) with Biden’s management of West Asian policy.
The PA’s uncertain future
To confuse matters further, the US-backed Israeli military establishment has different calculations than the Netanyahu-led government it serves. The military aims to demobilize reservists and shift to a less severe, more targeted level of aggression in Gaza, aligning with US advice, while simultaneously, preparations are being made for a potential Israeli escalation with Lebanon.
Much is unknown about the ongoing coordination between the Israeli military and the Pentagon – in terms of whether they are willing to undermine Tel Aviv’s goals and tactics – other than their joint concern that Israel’s right-wing government pursues personal interests over strategic considerations.
But avoiding a West Bank conflagration is a major concern for both, hence why this was a focal point of Blinken’s visit with Abbas and his shuttle diplomacy with the Saudis. The threat of a West Bank escalation was also used as leverage by the US to wrest Palestinian clearance funds back from the Netanyahu government. Key to the White House efforts is securing the weak and ineffectual PA as its main Palestinian partner moving forward, and rebranding it as a safe alternative to Hamas and other resistance factions in Gaza.
Since 7 October, the PA has sought political cover by tightly aligning itself to the stances of Egypt and Jordan, who warn Israel and its allies against population displacements in Gaza and the West Bank. This has led to increased engagements between Ramallah, Cairo, and Amman, which suits Washington’s agenda well.
None of these things, however, disguises the fact that an unpopular PA, riding on the shoulders of the now utterly despised American enablers of Gaza’s collapse, is seeking to unseat a popular Palestinian resistance, while poorly managing multiple war fronts, with an Israeli government immune to US demands or pleas.
Washington couldn’t deliver a Palestinian solution in the decades since peace was struck in Oslo – so what can it possibly do now? Wealthy Arab states are not interested in carrying the load of the PA when even the US can barely keep it on life support. Even UAE leader Mohammad bin Zayed, the Arab point-man for the Abraham Accords with Israel, told Netanyahu to ‘go ask Zelensky’ when the Israeli PM came begging for money to prop up the PA.
Band-aid solutions are only ever temporary. It takes a mere few drops of water to destroy their efficacy. As religious settlers run wild throughout the West Bank, courtesy of the Netanyahu government – the US will be playing full-time nursemaid alone, in a vain effort to tend to each and every cut. We could be one wound away from the whole enterprise imploding.