{"id":104243,"date":"2026-06-07T16:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T16:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/104243\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T16:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T16:03:15","slug":"israels-policy-for-gaza-and-the-west-bank-nobody-really-knows-what-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/104243\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel’s policy for Gaza and the West Bank: Nobody really knows what it is"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel\u2019s policy regarding the future of the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria (or the West Bank) seems to be a well-kept secret, if such a policy actually exists.<\/p>\n

You can find statements by various coalition members \u2013 but primarily by those of Otzma Yehudit and the Religious Zionist Party \u2013 who express a variety of ideological positions, as well as the occasional denial by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the more controversial among them express the government\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

Only rarely can one find an official document on the subject, and then it is usually the rejection of something proposed by foreign states or organizations, such as recognition of a Palestinian state, west of the Jordan River<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among the reasons why Israel refrains from openly adopting certain policy goals are international objections in general \u2013 and American objections in particular \u2013 to what it seeks to attain. There might also be concern that certain policy goals might serve the International Criminal Court in The Hague, in what is viewed by many in Israel as an unjustified, obsessive, and even antisemitic persecution of the Jewish state.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn Israeli flag flutters, as part of the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim is visible in the background, in the West Bank, August 14, 2025. (credit: REUTERS\/Ronen Zvulun)<\/p>\n

We had an example of this a week ago Sunday. The Ministerial Committee on Legislation had to decide whether to approve for preliminary reading a bill brought by MK Limor Son Har-Melech and the Otzma Yehudit parliamentary group on the cancellation of the Oslo Accords<\/a> and all its corollaries and appendices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The committee rejected the bill not because there wasn\u2019t a majority to approve it, but because Netanyahu demanded that it not be approved. According to Justice Minister Yariv Levin (who supported the bill but explained why it should be rejected), \u201cin the final reckoning, the prime minister is exposed to things I am not exposed to.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the peak of the war in the Gaza Strip, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir demanded that \u201cJewish settlement in the Gaza Strip\u201d should be declared as one of the goals of the war. At the time, Netanyahu reacted laconically, saying that Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip was not currently one of the war\u2019s goals.<\/p>\n

But what is Israel\u2019s long-term policy in the Gaza Strip? There was short-lived enthusiasm both by Netanyahu and the rest of the government about US President Donald Trump\u2019s Middle East Riviera program in February 2025 \u2013 especially the voluntary transfer of two million Palestinians to other countries willing to receive them.<\/p>\n

However, that program was short-lived, and the next program published by Trump in October 2025 was the 21-point peace plan for Gaza, which soon turned into a 20-point plan for settling the Gaza Strip issue by stages, without a transfer of the population, and with the involvement of several Muslim countries, including Turkey. This plan was greeted by Netanyahu and the government with skepticism, and even hostility.<\/p>\n

Though the Knesset voted at the beginning of December 2025 in favor of the 20-point plan, the coalition members were not present during the voting, so the vote was meaningless. The government and the security cabinet never approved or officially accepted the 20-point plan, though Israel gave partial agreements to specific steps included in it, such as an outline for opening the Rafah passage at the end of January, 2026.<\/p>\n

The future of Gaza and the West Bank<\/p>\n

It is not clear what Netanyahu\u2019s declaration on May 28, to the effect that Israel will increase its occupation in the Gaza Strip from the current 60% to 70% of the territory, means about its longer-term policy. Are there hopes or plans for a full and permanent occupation? There is no official policy.<\/p>\n

And what about Israel\u2019s long-term policy regarding Judea and Samaria<\/a>\/the West Bank?<\/p>\n

It is assumed that a majority in the current government supports the gradual full annexation of these territories to Israel, but that Netanyahu does not want superfluous declarations to this effect, because of strong American opposition to such an annexation.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, since assuming the office of finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich has stopped passing on to the Palestinian Authority most of the money his ministry collects for it in the form of taxes and customs duties related to it, based on the 1994 Paris Protocol that laid down the economic relations between Israel and the Authority following the Oslo Accords signed on September 13, 1993.<\/p>\n

The sum that is being withheld has reached around NIS 14 billion, and together with the results of Israel preventing the 170,000 West Bank Palestinians who used to work in Israel until October 7, 2023, from entering Israel, has brought the PA close to bankruptcy, with the education and health systems and the civil service on the verge of collapse.<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, Israel has many reasons to be dissatisfied with the PA and to seek to punish it, including its payment of pensions to the families of terrorists killed in action, and diplomatic activities that are viewed as harmful to Israel. However, one cannot avoid suspecting that Smotrich<\/a> is seeking to bring about the collapse of the Oslo Accords by indirect means.<\/p>\n

In the West Bank, Jewish outposts and agricultural ranches are being established around small Palestinian villages and communities, primarily in Area C (which is under Israel\u2019s full control) but also in parts of Area B (in which the PA exercises administrative control but shares security control with the IDF).<\/p>\n

From many of these Jewish outposts and ranches, the young settlers and temporary residents in them regularly attack their Palestinian neighbors, burning property, stealing or butchering livestock, damaging olive and other fruit trees, and occasionally wounding and even killing inhabitants of these villages and communities.<\/p>\n

These activities continue, even though they have been condemned by Netanyahu, who has called them \u201cviolent and anarchistic,\u201d as well as by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and other senior IDF officers. Even many Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria have said they are illegal, superfluous, and damaging to Israel and its official settlement policy.<\/p>\n

They continue without any significant military or police intervention, and without the culprits being detained, even though the names of most of them are known.<\/p>\n

It is believed that the goal of these activities is to get the Palestinians being attacked to give up and abandon their homes and land, which quite a few communities have done.<\/p>\n

The question is: Who actually determines this policy? Is it connected to Smotrich as an additional minister in the Defense Ministry with responsibilities for the civilian aspects of the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, and within the office of the coordinator of the government activities there? The answers to these questions are not known to the public.<\/p>\n

Why is all of this important?<\/p>\n

In less than five months we shall have critical elections that will decide Israel\u2019s future, for better or worse. Within this context, the government\u2019s policy, or lack of policy, regarding the future of all the territories west of the Jordan\u00a0River, will be one of the central issues to be raised.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, both sides of the political spectrum will arrive ready for this important debate.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, the opposition must stress that victory has eluded Israel because its brilliant tactical military achievements have not been followed up by a viable political plan.<\/p>\n

The writer has written journalistic and academic articles, as well as several books, on international relations, Zionism, Israeli politics, and parliamentarism. From 1994 to 2010, she worked at the Knesset Library and the Knesset Research and Information Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s policy regarding the future of the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria (or the West Bank) seems…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16469],"tags":[244,18161,12,7238,17627,243,54302,16767,54303,38515,17628],"class_list":["post-104243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-bezalel-smotrich","tag-donald-trump","tag-gaza-strip","tag-icc","tag-israel","tag-israel-and-palestine","tag-itamar-ben-gvir","tag-judea-and-samaria","tag-oslo-accords","tag-west-bank"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116709674616960521","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}