On Oct. 16, a little more than 10 days before Israel’s upcoming elections, a Washington Post press photographer was run down and beaten by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. The act soon earned headlines around the world and led to calls for the prosecution of those involved. Importantly, this attack was far from a one-off. Next week, as Israel votes to see if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stays in power, we must not forget the war being waged against the West Bank and its people, and we must consider whether anything will change.
The crisis in the West Bank has been largely overshadowed in the past few years by the genocide in Gaza, where about 74,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli firepower in three years. Israel’s encroachment on the West Bank has been much more deliberate, but it is no less important to grasping where Israeli politics are at today.
To understand the West Bank’s situation now, we must (without getting too far into the weeds) understand how it came to be. In 1967, after the Six-Day War which saw Israel reign victorious over Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Israel occupied the West Bank, as well as other territories such as Sinai, the Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip. Israel faced international calls to withdraw from the occupied territory, but only Sinai was eventually returned to Egypt. Ever since, the Israeli state has pursued a policy of settlement in the West Bank, a program that is illegal under international law. Today, there are more than 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and the land they control makes up 40% of the territory. Israel has also built a wall separating much of the Palestinian territory from itself, solidifying its splintering of Palestinian land.
This state-sponsored settlement and occupation program has increased rapidly in recent years, as the current government is extremely in favor of expanding Israeli control over the West Bank. On August 18, Netanyahu’s government announced new construction in one of the most controversial settlements: the E1 project. Located near the area of East Jerusalem (a territory also illegally occupied by Israel), the E1 settlement is poised to cut off the north of the West Bank from the South, further isolating the Palestinian people from each other. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich explicitly stated the purpose of the project was to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state.” Netanyahu and his extremist cabinet see the settlement program as essential to their interests; in their view, a Palestinian state poses a grave threat to their security and thus must never be allowed to exist.
Violence from settlers has also risen, and the attacks are growing alarmingly brazen. In addition to Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, a group of European diplomats was assaulted. These cases of attacks on foreigners are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to settler violence, though. Since January 2023, Palestinians have been partially or completely displaced from 107 of their communities, according to Human Rights Watch. 2026 has been even worse than before, with violence peaking in March and April of this year.
Israeli politicians know the situation in the West Bank; after all, the Israeli state supports and always has supported some form of a settler program that increasingly squeezes Palestinian people. Would a new government make anything better?
It’s possible, although we should be skeptical. Netanyahu’s main opponent, Gadi Eisenkot, still supports the extension of the settlement program and staunchly opposes the idea of a two-state solution. If Eisenkot were to win, he might curb the worst faults of the Netanyahu regime, but he would not likely provide meaningful change for Palestinians in the West Bank.
As the West Bank continues to be eroded by Israeli occupation, as so-called Israeli “settlers” carry out brutal attacks and as the territory attempts to maintain the barest level of autonomy, it is my sincere hope that the upcoming election will bring some relief. But I fear Israel is choosing between the extremism of Netanyahu and an opponent that only seems normal by comparison. Ultimately, Palestinians living in the West Bank still won’t get a say in what happens to them.