Violence by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians on the West Bank threatens new Mideast flash point

While the world is focused on the failures of Donald Trump’s warmongering in Iran and “peacemaking” in Gaza, too little attention is being paid to a potential new Mideast flash point sparked by messianic Israeli settlers on the occupied West Bank.

Escalating settler violence against Palestinians — attacking their villages, farms, and even homes — is unchecked and often assisted by Israeli military forces. It is also chilling because it is fully supported by extremists in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government who have his full backing.

I have witnessed such settler violence during reporting trips over the years, but it is reaching unprecedented heights (or depths) as Bibi courts right-wing votes before Israeli elections in October.

Far-right extremists are even encouraging Jewish-Arab violence atop the Temple Mount, the most sacred site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam, which could ignite anti-Israel religious violence and terrorism in the region.

The extremists’ goal — as clearly spelled out in a “Decisive Plan” by current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also oversees administration of the West Bank — is to present the Palestinians with three choices: legalized apartheid and repression, massive ethnic cleansing (labeled “voluntary emigration”) from the West Bank, or death if Palestinians resist.

The plan’s goals have extended to Gaza.

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The quibble over language that feeds debate over Israel in the United States — as in whether to call what’s happening in Gaza “genocide” — only distracts from the central problem. When Palestinians are offered nothing — meaning no political future or rights — they have nothing to lose. Unfettered occupation and ethnic cleansing will provoke resistance and terror attacks. It will be untenable in the long run.

What is more likely to happen is a third uprising on the West Bank, followed by massive bloodshed between Palestinians and settlers. It would guarantee a disastrous end to Trump’s Gaza project and to his Abraham Accords, which were meant to advance peace between Israel and Gulf Arab states. Yet, the president is clearly blind to how quickly his Mideast peace efforts are sliding toward disaster.

In desperation, 600 retired Israel Defense Forces generals and colonels, as well as retired intelligence and foreign service officers, recently wrote to Trump urging him to press Bibi to halt the West Bank violence.

I spoke to one of the group’s organizers, Nimrod Novik, a senior adviser to former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, a deeply experienced negotiator and distinguished fellow at the Israel Policy Forum, about his fears for the future if Israel’s policy toward Palestinians doesn’t change.

“What we will see in the West Bank in the next 90 days [before the Israeli election], you haven’t seen ever,” he warned. “The whole ideological right-wing extremist group, helped by the government, fears this is their last opportunity [to advance Smotrich’s goals]. If the Netanyahu government is ousted, the next government would deal harshly with Jewish terrorism.”

I would add a caveat: It isn’t clear how much a coalition of opposition parties, even if they were able to push Bibi out, would change policy toward Palestinians. The two largest opposition parties are against any future Palestinian state alongside Israel. But a new Israeli prime minister would likely try to reassert Israeli army control over army reserve units that support extremist settlers who regularly attack Palestinian civilians. And they might have less patience with radical groups of settler youths who roam unchallenged and even attack Israeli soldiers who try to block their violence.

Novik had a stark warning about what could happen if the violent settlers were allowed to continue their rampage. In certain security circles, he told me, “They think the settlers need to provoke a security crisis, and the West Bank might be the best opportunity.” He believes Jewish settler terrorism will produce revenge-seeking by Palestinians who are defending their families. Israeli security agencies, he added, are worried about a possible effort to provoke large-scale violence on the Temple Mount.

I still recall how a 1982 plot by Jewish religious terrorists to blow up the third holiest mosque in Islam atop the Temple Mount was discovered only at the last minute. “Even if they don’t bomb the mosque,” Novik pointed out, violence could still explode. Only recently, “five thousand Israelis in one day violated the status quo by praying on the mount.”

The status quo between Israel and Arab states, in place since the 1967 war, prohibits such praying, which is also banned by Israel’s rabbinate for religious reasons. Palestinians fear it indicates an imminent takeover of the holy site by Israeli Jews.

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Unless a new Israeli government reestablishes central military control over settler military units and armed extremist youths, unless it stops these youths from destroying Palestinian villages and homes, there is bound to be violence.

And unless a new Israeli government permits the rebuilding of the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority, the body which technically governed Palestinians, there is no authority to counter Hamas. Bibi did everything he could to destroy and bankrupt the Palestinian Authority. What would happen with a new government is unclear.

What is clear is that Bibi’s tolerance of Jewish terror is leading to a clash in the West Bank, and is aimed at driving the population of Gaza out into the Sinai Desert by keeping two million Palestinians underfed, without schools or medicine, and living in tents.

Even liberal Israelis are still traumatized by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, slaughter, and a new government will still tilt rightward. But a recent Israeli survey by the Israeli Democracy Institute shows that the largest share of respondents — among left, center, and even center-right — said authorities treat violence by Jews against Palestinians in the West Bank too leniently, with perpetrators rarely arrested and hardly ever punished.

Whether or not that poll hints at a particular voter response is very unclear.

However, Trump has a chance to stop his being labeled a complete loser in the Mideast by backing the opposition to Bibi, which may still carry some weight with Israeli voters. But no one should rely on a Trump awakening to reality.

It will be up to Israeli voters to decide whether they accept Smotrich’s vision or not — and the consequences that come with that approval.