The West Bank and Israel’s elimination project – posted 9/27/2026
In his speech at the UN on September 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplayed claims of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank saying it was the work of 150 “juvenile delinquents”. Nothing could be further from the truth.
For those who don’t know, the West Bank is a landlocked territory located west of the Jordan River. It is bordered by Israel to the west, north and south and by Jordan to the east. It is home to roughly 3 million Palestinians and 700,000 Israeli settlers. The international community widely regards the Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal.
Netanyahu’s UN speech entirely misrepresented Israel’s project in the West Bank. The Israeli human rights group, B’tselem, just released a devastating study that puts Israeli settler activity in a different light. B’tselem shows that Israel’s activities in the West Bank are not a collection of isolated activities. They are a single political project that is part of a comprehensive mechanism designed to dismantle Palestinian collective existence on the West Bank. The Executive Director of B’tselem, Yuli Novak writes:
“Communities are being expelled, the economy is being pushed toward collapse, and millions are living in constant fear of Israeli military or settler violence. These mechanisms work together to dismantle Palestinian collective life while entrenching a permanent system of Jewish supremacy across the West Bank. The world is watching and still failing to respond with anything close to the urgency this demands.”
To have a normal life, certain minimum prerequisites are required. People need to be able to go to work, take their children to school, attend university, go to the doctor and receive medical care, meet with family members and cultivate their land. When such activities are interfered with and blocked, life becomes difficult, if not impossible.
In assembling its report, B’tselem drew on 2000 testimonies it obtained from Palestinians since October 2023. B’tselem broke down Israel’s project into five domains.
Violence and intimidation are a central mechanism of control, displacement and dismantling. The violence is inflicted by the Israeli military, the police and armed settlers. They operate with almost complete immunity. The settler militias attack villages, farmland and grazing areas using weapons and off-road vehicles supplied by the state. The Israeli military is often present but they typically fail to prevent the violence. Between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2026, Israel has killed 1,087 Palestinians in the West Bank.
Movement restrictions are a second mechanism of social control. People need to be able to reach their land, work, school or a hospital. Separation barriers, checkpoints, road restrictions and permit systems all restrict Palestinian movement. Settlers block roads, threaten drivers and attack Palestinians.
Economic strangulation is a third method used to dismantle Palestinian existence. Israel revoked almost all permits allowing West Bank Palestinians to work inside the Green Line. Unemployment, poverty and a decline in living standards is part of the Israeli design. Israel has prevented independent Palestinian development of infrastructure and energy development. The Israeli military bulldozed, uprooted and torched thousands of fruit-bearing trees in the occupied West Bank.
Israel has restricted every form of independent Palestinian political activity. They have imposed military rule over Palestinians on the West Bank restricting demonstrations and incarcerating activists.
A last mechanism of control is ethnic cleansing and territorial takeover. Israel and settler militias have seized huge swaths of Palestinian land. Demolition of homes and expulsion from homes are part of a project of displacement to reduce Palestinian presence and break up the continuity of Palestinian life.
B’tselem traces the elimination project to a 2017 plan developed by Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister and a member of the Defense Ministry who has powers over Israeli rule in the West Bank. Under the Smotrich plan, Palestinians have three options: abandon their national claims, accept life under Jewish supremacy, leave or face military force if they resist.
As an American Jew aware of the Jewish experience of holocaust, I am appalled to see the Zionist project degenerate into a form of extreme apartheid. There is massive denial in Israel about the crimes the Israeli state is committing on the West Bank.
The Jewish world consists of a vast array of religious and secular tendencies. The settler movement on the West Bank is largely a far right religious brand of Zionism led by fanatics who think Israel has an undisputed biblical claim to the land. Some of the most extremist factions like the Hilltop Youth advocate active displacement and exclusion of Palestinians. The idea that it is antisemitic to criticize such extremism is ludicrous.
Our media has largely failed to report the crimes Israel is committing in the West Bank. Israel has made it extremely dangerous to do reporting there. There have been many documented physical assaults on reporters by Israeli settlers and soldiers. Palestinian reporters have faced the most severe repression, getting detained and interrogated for their coverage. They risk imprisonment and worse for their reporting.
.During the Trump years, morality has atrophied in America. What is wrong is not just Israel’s elimination project, it is also the apathy displayed towards Israel’s crimes on the West Bank. These crimes need to be called out and resisted.
