By Sari Orabi
Sari Orabi, a Palestinian researcher, writes on the Al-Jazeera Arabic website that Israel’s policies of slow displacement in the West Bank, under Netanyahu’s government, are aimed at reshaping the region through settlement expansion, military control, and the fragmentation of Palestinian communities.
Since the West Bank’s occupation in 1967, it has remained a point of consensus among Israelis. Apart from its role in the ideological divide of Zionist settlement, it also offered a partial solution to poverty within the newly established state. Immediately after the occupation, Yigal Allon, a minister from the “Haganah” (the Zionist military organization), proposed his plan for the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.
The plan suggested annexing the Gaza Strip and displacing its residents while keeping parts of the West Bank, particularly the Jordan Valley from the Jordan River to the eastern slopes of Nablus and Jenin, as well as the regions of Hebron and Jerusalem. It also proposed returning the population to Jordanian sovereignty, connecting them to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan via a corridor passing through the outskirts of Jericho. Just before signing the Oslo Accords, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin explained that settlements in the West Bank could be divided into two types: security settlements, which were located on the borders and needed strengthening and expansion, and political settlements, which would remain as they were, with their residents staying in place.
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What the Israeli right wing, today bolstered by the Torah settlement movement under Netanyahu’s government, has done is build upon this Zionist colonial framework. This framework is strategic, aimed at expanding settlements and ultimately achieving “Greater Israel” from the sea to the river. This expansion elevates the Palestinian demographic issue, bringing it to the forefront. What is Israel doing with the 3 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank?
Historically, Israeli colonial policy has been about imposing facts on the ground and consolidating them, using these facts as a basis for future actions, whether to further the colonial project or to use them as a foundation for negotiations.
Since Israel’s expansion in 1967, it has made its territorial control the basis for negotiations, sidelining the original rights of the native population and international law, regardless of how unjust they may be to the original inhabitants. As a result, the settlement project has steadily expanded in the West Bank, with increasingly sophisticated infrastructure, backed by Israeli military power and intense security measures. This transformation has turned the West Bank into an environment that pushes out its indigenous inhabitants while attracting colonizing settlers.
The colonial situation in the West Bank is characterized by escalating policies of suffocation and siege, targeting the indigenous population. These policies take a unique form of apartheid and aim to re-engineer the social structure of the indigenous population, placing them in a vice between settlement expansion and military rule.
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The settlement expansion has transformed Jerusalem into a massive block that separates the southern and northern West Bank, isolating East Jerusalem’s residents inside the settlement wall. This cuts them off from their geographic and demographic space in the West Bank, creating disparities not only politically but also economically and socially. This separation prevents social, economic, and political cohesion between Palestinians in Jerusalem and those in the rest of the West Bank, further tying Jerusalem Palestinians to Israeli institutions.
The settlement infrastructure is central to the colonial project in the West Bank. The bypass roads, the separation barrier, and the overall security control system—comprising checkpoints, iron gates, surveillance towers, and concrete blocks—serve the settlement movement and restrict Palestinians’ mobility.
These measures also contribute to the fragmentation of major Palestinian population centers, separating villages from one another and from their cities, shrinking the space available for Palestinian communities. Some villages are completely isolated, accessible only by their own residents, with no access for nearby villagers. This is a permanent condition, but during exceptional security situations, such as since October 7, 2023, the number of villages closed off by iron gates has increased.
As a result, the geography of the indigenous population has been fragmented into small, isolated areas, surrounded by active settlement life and Israeli military forces, making it easier to control. These isolated areas are essentially small enclaves, each with its own circumstances, which weakens the social unity of Palestinians and prevents them from organizing collectively for resistance.
Simultaneously, this isolation deprives Palestinians of access to vital expansion areas, leaving them unable to develop their agricultural sector due to restrictions on accessing farmland. The occupation has also prohibited Palestinians from building on land classified as “Area C.” Buildings constructed despite these restrictions are subject to demolition, with no opportunity for compensation.
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While administrative authority in Area B is supposed to be under the Palestinian Authority, according to the Oslo Accords, Israel has recently extended its administrative authority to Area B, giving it the power to demolish Palestinian buildings in this area.
The ability to isolate, control roads, and effectively confiscate Area C results in the destruction of any potential for a self-sustaining Palestinian society, free from Israeli economic dominance. This erodes Palestinian productive capacities, which are further constrained by the Paris Economic Agreement, placing the entire Palestinian economy under Israeli control. Palestinian trade is reliant on Israeli ports and crossings, creating the “clearance” crisis, where Israel collects taxes for the Palestinian Authority and takes a commission. This has become a tool for political extortion, used to force political concessions and impose security conditions on the Palestinian Authority.
As a result, the Palestinian Authority’s financial viability is entirely tied to the will of successive Israeli governments. This dependency has deepened under Netanyahu’s government, especially with Bezalel Smotrich, finance minister and leader of the “Religious Zionism” party, who is also a leader of the settler movement.
The ongoing confiscation of clearance funds has led to a persistent economic contraction in the Palestinian economy. The Palestinian economy relies on the salaries of Palestinian Authority employees and the wages of Palestinian workers in Israel. However, these incomes have almost disappeared since October 7, 2023, when Israel banned Palestinian workers from entering Jerusalem and the occupied territories of 1948.
This situation highlights the lack of opportunity to develop an agricultural or industrial economy in the West Bank. Service-based economies are stifled due to security measures and the military and settlement fragmentation of the West Bank. It is impossible to build a service economy based on local residents, who lack economic stability because their incomes are tied to the unstable salaries of the Palestinian Authority or the wages of workers heading to Israel.
Thus, the logic of settlement expansion and security needs has shifted from an economic containment strategy to one of economic humiliation. This policy is designed to reduce the Palestinian population in the West Bank and forms part of the broader colonial solution to the demographic issue in Palestine. It strengthens Israel’s annexation plans for the West Bank.
In 2017, Bezalel Smotrich proposed his plan for resolving the conflict in the West Bank, which calls for the annexation of the entire West Bank. This plan opens up the discussion on the demographic issue, as a “Jewish Israel” cannot sustain a large Palestinian population. Smotrich’s proposed solutions to avoid apartheid—so as not to turn it into a one-state solution—include a series of steps:
First, treating West Bank residents as second-class citizens, with no political rights.
Facilitating voluntary migration.
Considering granting Israeli citizenship to those willing to fulfill full citizenship duties, including serving in the Israeli military.
Penalizing those who refuse conscription or migration with unprecedented repression.
Ultimately, according to Smotrich’s plan, the remaining West Bank population would be given Jordanian citizenship, while Israel would retain legal and security control over the West Bank.
It goes without saying that this is an ambitious plan. However, all annexation projects, regardless of their scope or security control, require reducing the population of the West Bank. Reducing the West Bank population is a strategic, security, political, and settler-driven necessity. In this context, the settler movement’s efforts align with those of Israel’s official institutions.
Moreover, in addition to the gradual approach that has transformed the West Bank into a hostile environment, settler presence has evolved into organized militia-like formations within settler organizations. These groups operate with their own ideological, religious, and political reference points and have extensive networks within Israeli political, military, and security institutions. Entire battalions within the Israeli military and police, particularly border guard forces, are made up of members from the settler movement.
It is also important to note that the second-highest-ranking position in the Israeli army, the commander of the central region (the military governor of the West Bank), is currently held by a religious settler, Avi Blout, who has lived in the “Nof Zion” settlement built on lands of several villages west of Ramallah. He studied at a religious military school in the “Eli” settlement east of Ramallah.
The settler movement’s representatives in the government and the Knesset have worked to limit the authority of the Shin Bet security service in monitoring settler militias that have been armed by ministers in Netanyahu’s government, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the “Jewish Power” party. This has led to horrifying attacks by settlers, protected by the Israeli military, against Palestinian towns, homes, and agricultural lands.
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The policies of slow displacement reached their peak with Netanyahu’s government, which has entrenched the settlement presence, turning it into a permanent civilian occupation. Smotrich’s second ministerial role in the Israeli Ministry of Defense has given settlers their own administrative body within the Civil Administration, the military arm of occupation in the West Bank.
This settler administration operates under civilian laws, distinct from the military laws imposed on Palestinians, with the aim of unifying settlement laws with Israeli laws within the occupied territories. This represents a de facto annexation of the settlements, which in turn means further settlement expansion and necessitates more infrastructure, security, and military mobilization.
Furthermore, slow displacement policies are now characterized by increasing violence, not only to dismantle armed resistance in northern West Bank areas but also to reinforce an environment that pushes Palestinians out through direct violence, such as systematic destruction in Jenin and Tulkarm refugee camps, and intimidation across entire neighborhoods.
This situation represents an evolving settler-driven colonial vision that reshapes entire areas of Palestinian cities in line with Israel’s occupation framework. This accelerated approach imposes stronger limitations on what remains of the Palestinian identity and heritage in the region. The comprehensive process will eventually lead to a permanent settlement presence spanning all of Israel’s West Bank territories, at the expense of Palestinian existence and presence.
(Al-Jazeera Arabic Website – Translated and Prepared by the Palestine Chronicle)
