There is no shortage of volatility in the Middle East. In the wake of protests in Iran, Washington has threatened to strike; violence in Gaza continues despite a cease-fire; Hezbollah is rearming in Lebanon; and factional rivalries are destabilizing Syria. But the next front to explode may be one that policymakers keep treating as an afterthought—the West Bank. Since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre and Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza, the Israeli government has mounted a de facto annexation drive, stepping up its military presence in the West Bank, exerting sustained pressure on the Palestinian Authority (PA) to weaken it, accelerating the approval of Jewish settlements, and retroactively legalizing illicit outposts. Acts of violence perpetrated by settlers have become a near-daily occurrence.

Then, on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet approved an extraordinary set of measures that convert the ongoing de facto annexation of the West Bank into de jure policy. The move’s timing was especially brazen, coming just ahead of yesterday’s visit to the White House by Netanyahu. Israel will ease limits on land sales to settlers and assume the power to decide how land is used in areas A and B, which had officially been under PA rule. The goal, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared, is to “kill the idea of a Palestinian state.”

This move is only the latest development that has brought the West Bank to the brink of outright crisis. The PA could become functionally insolvent within months, ending the provision of basic services to millions of Palestinians and aborting a security-cooperation effort with Israel that, until now, has prevented widespread unrest. Ramadan begins next week, an event that historically inflames tensions around the al-Aqsa compound in East Jerusalem—known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount. Shifts in Israeli policing that weaken restraints on provocative behavior, paired with the absence of effective external mediation channels to help de-escalate tensions, creates a real risk that sacred‑site incidents could spark wider unrest.

The fact that these flash points exist is no accident. It is an Israeli strategy. Influential Israeli government ministers have long argued that the West Bank must be folded into Israel’s political and administrative orbit. A 2017 manifesto penned by Smotrich called the “Decisive Plan” laid out the road map: Israel should create irreversible facts on the ground that will foreclose any possibility of Palestinian statehood and force Palestinians to accept permanently subordinate status or leave the West Bank.

Since October 7, Smotrich and other right-wing Israeli leaders have exploited the fog of war to turn this vision into policy. Although Netanyahu’s position is more ambiguous—he has repeatedly insisted that Israel does not want to assume full governance over the Palestinian territories—his political survival depends on nationalist‑religious voters, limiting his ability and incentive to rein in leaders who want annexation. Many Israeli moderates and international actors cling to the comforting assumption that an upcoming Israeli election later this year can reset the country’s approach to the West Bank. But depending on such a reset is much too risky. Many of the past two years’ changes are irreversible, especially as the Israeli opposition presented no clear alternative to the annexationists’ vision.

If the annexationists’ momentum is not checked very soon, their cumulative acts will increase the odds of renewed unrest, necessitate sustained Israel Defense Forces (IDF) mobilizations, deepen Israel’s diplomatic isolation, and force Israel to shoulder the burdens of civil governance in the West Bank, no matter how much Netanyahu claims he wants otherwise. It would also fatally undermine implementation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20‑point peace plan for Gaza, which depends on a reformed PA returning to govern that territory. Already, conditions on the ground are rendering the stabilization of the territory impossible—and creating the conditions for it to become an irrevocably permanent insurgency zone.

Israel’s security establishment operates in the West Bank according to a set of uneasy but functional principles: prevent Hamas from taking over, contain violence through intelligence, and rely on the PA’s security forces as a partner (however flawed those forces may be) to keep a large‑scale, coordinated insurgency from taking hold. For years before October 7, the number of Israeli troops and the tempo of IDF operations in the West Bank had remained relatively steady. After October 7, the IDF declared war on Hamas everywhere, amping up its West Bank raids and expanding checkpoints and temporary closures across the territory, including in refugee camps. These operations drove mass displacements, but they also initially disrupted militant networks and prevented terror attacks—in large part thanks to increased security........

© Foreign Affairs