This short passage in an article (paywalled) in Haaretz focuses on a point that hasn’t been sufficiently visible in the US press. There’s been a decent amount of U.S. coverage of the increasingly violent and predatory escalation in the West Bank, in which the government has both encouraged and allowed the most violent members of the settler community to accelerate their campaign of harassment, violence and expulsions of Palestinian families and communities. But this isn’t just a broader expression of Greater Israel maximalism, though it’s also very much that. There’s a nearer term goal. It’s also an electoral strategy, one aimed at hyper-mobilizing the settler parties in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition and also creating a security crisis he hopes he will benefit from.
There are many on the Israeli side who want, and are actively seeking, a severe escalation in the West Bank. Their motives reflect two overlapping interests: the hope that growing violence will ultimately trigger a broader confrontation, allowing Israel to dismantle the Palestinian Authority and seize large parts of the West Bank by force; and the desire to manufacture a security emergency ahead of the October 27 election, pushing the Netanyahu government’s responsibility for the failures that led to the October 7 massacre off the political agenda.
