It is hard to describe yesterday’s announcement by the Israeli Government of its intention to establish 22 further settlements in the West Bank without resorting to cliché. So many metaphorical nails have been hammered into the two-state solution’s metaphorical coffin that there must now be more nail than coffin. Similarly, never has a camel so repeatedly had its back broken by yet another straw. Yet it is hard to look at the plans set out by the Israeli Ministry of Defence without concluding that, if they are carried out, they will indeed amount to a point of no return.
One of the reasons for the plan, cited by Defence Minister Israel Katz, is to “prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel.” If one wanted to be relentlessly positive, one might just about be able to convince oneself to focus on those last four words – “that would endanger Israel” – and conclude that he was not ruling out a future Palestinian state altogether. Most people, one would suspect, would not be able to sustain such a belief for more than a few heartbeats.
After all, a look at the map of the 22 intended locations, as shared by the far-right Minister for Settlements, Orit Strock, shows that they are not concentrated in one small area of the West Bank, but spread liberally throughout the entire territory – north, south, east and west.
A map of the proposed 22 West Bank settlements, produced by Israel’s ‘Religious Zionist’ party
No-one familiar with Israeli politics can claim to be surprised by the intentions of politicians such as Bezalel Smotrich and Strock – they have always been very clear about their desire not just to settle, but to annex the West Bank. They see settlement – or re-settlement, as they would describe it – not merely as a political and defensive duty, but a religious one. Many observers of Israeli politics would argue – with justification – that this was likely to be an inevitable result of Benjamin Netanyahu bringing the merged “Mafdal–Religious Zionism” party into his governing coalition.
Few, however, might have expected such a decision – which risks enflaming the ever-volatile West Bank – to have been made at the same time as Israel has committed five army brigades to take control of Gaza. Likewise, many might question the wisdom of such a step at a time when Israel is becoming increasingly diplomatically isolated. Countries including the UK, Canada and France have recently condemned Israel in language which goes far beyond the usual; this latest announcement from Israel essentially doubles, triples and quadruples down on a policy guaranteed to infuriate a range of Western countries, whose longstanding critical friendship with Israel is increasingly becoming simply critical.
As ever, much will depend on America, and the volatile, unpredictable man who sits in the Oval Office. Donald Trump has the ability to completely derail the Netanyahu-led government, something which the Israeli Prime Minister must be all too painfully aware of. People sometimes forget that despite Netanyahu having led Israel for more than a fifth of the State’s existence, Trump is the only Republican President he has ever dealt with as Israeli Prime Minister. With Clinton, Obama and Biden, Netanyahu could – and did – appeal to a Republican-controlled Congress to back him when he had disagreements with a Democrat-controlled White House. With Trump in situ, that political gambit is no longer an option. In recent months, the Trump administration has reportedly directly talked to Hamas, arranged via Qatar for the release of an American hostage, and has been trailing the possibility of sanctions relief for Iran as part of a possible nuclear deal – all of which has been done with Israel effectively side-lined.
Trump’s first administration provides a good example about how this announcement from Israel could ultimately be meaningless. In May 2020, Netanyahu announced that the Israeli government was committed to de facto annexation of areas of the West Bank by that summer. His strong implication was that this was being done with US approval. That August, however, Netanyahu abruptly shelved those annexation plans – with the following month leading to the one element of Trump’s troubled first term which was quite genuinely a diplomatic triumph – the Abraham Accords, initially between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. There will doubtless be many liberal Zionists who will be thinking of that previous example – and using it to comfort themselves that these latest settlement plans will never actually come to fruition.
This, however, brings us to the subject of Diaspora Jews, and specifically, the potential impact of such an announcement on the UK Jewish community.
Last year, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) reported that 54% of British Jews agreed that a two-state solution is the only way Israel will achieve peace with its neighbours, a significant decline from the 77% who agreed with that statement in 2010. Years of conflict between Israel and Hamas, culminating with 7 October and Israel’s response, have taken their toll. A number of British Jews have had their attitudes harden. Many of those might well agree with Netanyahu’s comments last week that “for 18 years we had a de facto Palestinian state. It’s called Gaza. And what did we get? Peace? No. We got the most savage slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.” He went on to say that a future Palestinian state is “not going to be a state free of Hamas. When you establish a Palestinian state, we’ve seen it, the radicals take over. Iran sends them in and they take over. So don’t give us this talk, ‘It’ll be a peaceful Palestinian state’. It won’t be.” There will be a significant percentage of British Jews – not a majority, but certainly not a tiny minority – who would broadly agree with those sentiments.
On the other side of the Jewish community, however – making up a key element of that 54% who still believe in a two-state solution – are those who can be described as liberal Zionists. They too have deep familial and emotional connections to Israel. Many will vocally criticise the Israeli government within the confines of the community but hesitate to share such condemnation more widely, acutely aware of the risk of being used as tokens by those who desire Israel’s complete destruction.
And yet.
Every one of us operates with a series of political, emotional and moral red lines – a sequence of conscious or subconscious “until here, but no further” thought processes. In the last few months, some have reached their red lines with regards to the Israeli government’s policies towards Gaza, and have spoken out publicly, to significant effect. For others, this latest announcement by the Israeli government – which, if carried through, would effectively end the remaining, waning hopes of a two-state solution – could well be that trigger.
