Netanyahu’s strategy to prevent Palestinian statehood.
By Alon Ben-Meir*
NEW YORK | 10 Mar 2026 (IDN) — Prime Minister Netanyahu does not seek a negotiated peace with the Palestinians; instead, he perpetuates constant hostilities as a means to incrementally seize ever more territory in the West Bank and Gaza—territory he knows he could never secure at the negotiating table.
Israel’s post–October 7 policy in the West Bank amounts to a deliberate strategy of annexation implemented through illegal administrative integration, settlement expansion, and organised settler violence. Cumulatively, this would allow Netanyahu to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state and ultimately realise his goal of establishing greater Israel by any means necessary, however beastly.
Israel’s current governing coalition has taken a series of structural measures that convert the West Bank’s military administration into a civilian one, integrate settlements into Israel’s domestic systems, and entrench permanent demographic and territorial changes.
These moves go beyond ordinary occupation and align with what the International Court of JusticeandUnited Nationsbodies describe as “de facto annexation” and the consolidation of an apartheid-like regime in violation of international law.
Territorial Consolidation
A cornerstone of this transformation is the transfer of key powers over settlements from the military commander to the Civil Administration, particularly to the bigoted Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who was granted such powers in the Defence Ministry.
This shift situates core aspects of West Bank governance inside Israel’s internal bureaucracy, blurring the distinction between sovereign territory and occupied land and directly contradicting the law of occupation, which requires a separate, temporary regime.
Smotrich has explicitly framed this process as groundwork for applying Israeli sovereignty forever, both in Gaza and over the West Bank, stating that “the year 2025 will be the year of sovereignty in the West Bank.”
The Israeli government has opened dozens of roads around settlements and outposts, connecting Jewish communities while restricting Palestinian movement and enabling further land seizures that ruthlessly strip Palestinians of their principal source of livelihood.
Palestinians face systemic denial of building permits across most of Area C (controlled and administered by Israel), making “illegal construction” almost unavoidable. Israel then deploys demolitions and forced displacement to clear “strategic” areas.
From November 2023 to October 2024, at least1,779 Palestinian structureswere demolished in the West Bank, forcibly displacing4,527 peopleand further shrinking Palestinian territorial presence.
At the same time, Israel advanced plans for more than10,300 housing unitsin West Bank settlements, supporting at least49 new outposts, alongside plans for over20,000 units in East Jerusalem. These activities serve a project of territorial reengineering designed to preempt the emergence of a viable Palestinian state.
Settler Militarisation and State-Enabled Violence
Following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, Israel dramatically expanded the legitimisation of settler violence.
Thousands of settlers were incorporated into official security structures or armed with state-issued weapons, blurring the line between irregular settler militias and state security agents and embedding them within the machinery of control over Palestinians.
UN and human-rights reporting indicate that settler-initiated violence surged dramatically, averaging118 incidents per month in 2024, often occurring in the presence—or with the participation—of Israeli forces.
These attacks included killings, beatings, property destruction, and forced expulsions of Palestinian communities. Yet accountability remained minimal, suggesting tacit or explicit state support for settler violence aimed at consolidating territorial control.
Escalating Military Force and Displacement
Although Israel is not formally at war in the West Bank, its forces have repeatedly used heavy battlefield weapons—including airstrikes—in urban refugee camps such asJeninandTulkarem.
By October 2025, UN monitoring documented at least108 airstrikes in the West Bank, killing445 Palestiniansand displacing an estimated30,000–40,000 people, while destroying significant parts of the targeted camps.
This level of force, deployed outside a declared armed conflict and on territory under prolonged occupation, deepens the depopulation of key areas and reinforces the message that Palestinians lack security anywhere the state seeks tighter control.
Between October 7, 2023 and October 17, 2025, at least1,001 Palestinianswere killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by Israeli forces and settlers—roughlyone in five of them a child.
For critics of Israeli policy, this reflects a systemic strategy that renders Palestinian presence precarious while facilitating the normalisation of settlements and sovereignty claims.
The Erosion of Palestinian Statehood
Explicit political statements and parliamentary actions underline the governing coalition’s intent.
In July 2025, theKnessetadopted a resolution affirming Israel’s “natural, historical, and legal right” to the entire Land of Israel and calling on the government “to extend Israeli sovereignty, including law, jurisdiction, and administration, over all areas of Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley.”
During the debate, Likud MKDan Illouzstated that “for the first time, the Knesset is officially expressing its support for applying sovereignty over Judea and Samaria,” insisting these areas “are not bargaining chips.”
In the West Bank, Israel operates a separate legal system. Israeli settlers live under civil law, enjoy full political and civil rights, and receive extensive state services. Palestinians, meanwhile, remain subject to military rule, sweeping movement restrictions, and systematic denial of building and planning rights.
This dual system entrenches demographic and territorial engineering that systematically benefits Israeli Jews over Palestinians.
The pattern of killings, forced displacement, property destruction and institutionalised discrimination corresponds with indicators used by UN bodies and independent experts to characterise regimes of apartheid: fragmentation of the oppressed population, segregation into enclaves, denial of political participation and the use of extraordinary violence to maintain domination.
Together, these practices function as tools of de facto annexation that steadily erase Palestinian national identity.
Meanwhile, former U.S. President Donald Trump, while promoting his “Board of Peace,” has yet to challenge Netanyahu’s policies in the West Bank publicly—actions critics argue only Washington could effectively restrain.
Netanyahu and his fervent messianic coalition, critics contend, risk shackling Israel to an endless vortex of violence and insecurity, as Palestinians continue to assert their enduring claim to self-determination and statehood.
*Dr Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Centre for Global Affairs at New York University. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies. alon@alonben-meir.com [IDN-InDepthNews]