Today, following the ceasefire in Gaza, the Israeli government and military have further lit the West Bank on fire, severely restricting movement, closing off whole cities such as Bethlehem, invading Jenin, and attacking villages in Areas C and B without respite via settler and military violence.
Many were surprised to see this response, expecting a period of calm. However, this reality is not by chance, and is in many ways the continued realization of now Minister Smotrich’s Decisive Plan.
In 2017, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's Finance Minister and leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, proposed a political roadmap that he calls a "decisive plan" for dealing with the occupied Palestinian Territories. The core of this plan involves reducing Palestinian population and land ownership in the West Bank, while simultaneously expanding Israeli settlements in those areas.
Worryingly, Smotrich has recently been given broad powers over West Bank governance. We are currently seeing the effects in real time.
What is the plan and how is it being reflected on policies on the ground in real time?
In Smotrich’s words
Smotrich has stated that “The Arabs of Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) will be given two options - stay and live under Israeli sovereignty without political rights or emigrate to countries willing to take them in."
One aspect of this plan is creating bubbles of limited Palestinian local governance in the West Bank that is exclusively Urban and disconnected from one another while also taking civil control of all other areas.
The plan also calls for Israel to reassert full military control over Palestinian territories and dismantle the Palestinian Authority.
The decisive plan claims that it offers a pragmatic way ensure that the land from the river to the sea is exclusively under Jewish sovereignty.
Peace or Nakba?
“Peace will not emerge so long as we maintain our hold on starting assumptions that this land is fated to contain two collectives with conflicting national aspirations.” For Smotrich, peace and pragmatism mean dispossessing Palestinians from their land, ethnic cleaning, and forcing Palestinians who remain to live as individuals without political rights. In his words, those who stay and resist “will be dealt with by the security forces with a strong hand and under more manageable conditions for doing so.”
In 2016, Smotrich told Raviv Hecht of Haaretz:
[W]e are deciding the conflict: I am destroying their hopes of establishing a state…When Joshua entered the land, he sent three letters to its inhabitants: Those who want to accept [our rule] will accept; those who want to leave, will leave; those who want to fight, will fight... Those who want to leave, and there will be those who leave - I will help them. When they have no hope and no outlook, they will leave, just as they left in 1948.
This, in essence, is the decisive plan.
Smotrich as a governmnet minister
In the current government, Smotrich has been granted wide-reaching powers in this coalition that can be used to dispossess Palestinians of their land in the West Bank. The recent coalition agreements agrees to the principle that “the Jewish people have an exclusive right on all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.” Even before October, 2023, the government was in process of expanding settlements and outposts and granting Smotrich power that legal experts believe constitute de jure annexation of the West Bank, since the government is now responsible for most aspects of life in the West Bank except as they relate to security.
Settling the land
Phase one of Smotrich’s Decisive Plan is settling the land. Over the past year and a half, the government, with Smotrich as a minister in the defense ministry, has:
Started authorization process for 70 unauthorized West Bank outposts
Set up 91 new unauthorized outposts approved or advanced 18,000 new housing units in existing settlements
Declared 22,000 dunams as state lands (compared to 13,000 dunams un the previous decade), meaning they are now land which Israel views as ‘acceptable’ to build on while also preventing Palestinian building
Assumed the enforcement powers over parts of Area B, overriding the authority of the Palestinian Authority. This means the army is now demolishing Palestinian homes in these areas and also building outposts
Dispossession
In the nine months in which the current government was in power until October 7th, state backed settler violence and new outposts succeeded in dispossessing Palestinians communities of around 150,000 Dunams of land (or 150 square kilometers) in the central West Bank.
Since October 7th, 50 rural Palestinian communities have been forced off their land due in full to intensified settler attacks, also with military backing. That number is rising weekly. with settler violence at an all time recorded high.
The Bottom Line
The current situation of indefinite military control over Palestinians simply cannot continue. Smotrich understands this very well, which is why he's pushing for ethnic cleansing and annexation as the answer.
Let's be clear - this path only serves a small few - particularly the settler movement and the Israeli government that wants to stay in power. It actively harms Palestinians and dispossesses them from their land, while also putting the safety of Israelis at risk as it only pushes us into a state of endless violence and absolute insecurity. It's also completely immoral.
In 2025, the decisive plan is in full swing - it's happening right before our eyes.
So what can be done? The real solution lies in true equality between Palestinians and Israelis, in ending military control, and in recognizing the two peoples living between the Jordan River and the sea.
Sources
The decisive plan
https://hashiloach.org.il/israels-decisive-plan/
The West Bank villages wiped off the map by Israeli settler violence - +972 magazine
https://www.972mag.com/west-bank-villages-israeli-settler-violence/
‘It’s like 1948’: Israel cleanses vast West Bank region of nearly all Palestinians - +972 magazine
https://www.972mag.com/area-c-ethnic-cleansing-settler-violence/
The Face of Israel's Far Right Wants to 'Abort' Palestinian Hope - haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2016-12-03/ty-article-magazine/.premium/the-face-of-israels-far-right-wants-to-abort-palestinian-hope/0000017f-f2f8-d497-a1ff-f2f875960000
Opinion | Smotrich's Plan to Subjugate the Palestinians Goes Ahead - haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-12/ty-article/.premium/the-plan-to-subjugate-the-palestinians-goes-ahead/0000018e-32ae-d606-a5ff-7fbf31c80000
Peace Now - Settlement Watch
https://peacenow.org.il/en//category/activities/bashetach
Do you see any real possibility to stop this madness in the short run? :(
Do most Israelis agree with this?