Back in November 1989, Benjamin Netanyahu made a speech at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv. He argued that the Israeli government had failed to exploit internationally favorable situations, such as the Tiananmen Square massacre in June of that year, when the world’s attention was focused on China, to carry out “large-scale expulsions … I still believe that there are opportunities to expel many people.”

Fast track to 2026 and Netanyahu’s acolytes and fanbase in the West Bank have clearly heeded the lesson. The US-Israeli war on Iran has furnished them another cast-iron, five-star opportunity to turbocharge their efforts to forcibly dispossess Palestinian communities, in the full knowledge that few in the wider world will have the time, energy or focus to make any fuss. On Saturday, settlers attacked 20 Palestinian villages and communities, torching homes, properties and cars.

Not that international fuss has been holding them back. Since October 2023, and even before, the settler movement has been on a very well-orchestrated rampage. The difference since 2001, 25 years ago, is that the number of settlers has almost doubled to more than 750,000. They also have settler ministers and a government that believes it has a sacred duty to make the West Bank a part of the sovereign state of........

© Eurasia Review