Under Netanyahu’s coalition, Jews in Judea and Samaria have had the wind at their backs. The government has approved new communities and retroactively legalized others, provided funding for infrastructure and expansion, and, perhaps most importantly, transferred authority over civilian matters from military officials to elected politicians.
At a settlement celebration in August, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government has established and legalized 104 communities and 160 agricultural outposts in Judea and Samaria. Jewish presence in the region secures the Israeli people's present and future, he said.
“This is our land and it will remain ours forever,” Netanyahu said. "We did not allow, nor will we allow, the establishment of a Palestinian state. If the left comes to power, the settlement revolution will be stopped.”
Observers JNS spoke with agreed.
Amihood Amir, chairman of Professors for a Strong Israel, a group of academics focused on issues related to Israeli security and national identity, said it’s hard to know how extreme an opposition government will be, “but for sure they're not going to expand the settlements.”
An opposition government might reverse authorizations already given for some of the farming outposts. These are agricultural settlements that have become popular in recent years as they provide a way for a single family to maintain a physical presence over a large area through grazing and other agricultural activities.
In August, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that he wants to bring the agricultural outpost model to the Galilee in the north, where Arab-majority towns are concentrated, and the Negev in the south, where Bedouin are rapidly taking over.
Amihood said that idea would be jettisoned under opposition rule as its Arab partner, the United Arab List (Ra'am), a Muslim Brotherhood-linked party, would prevent it. Its constitutents are the ones illegally building in the Galilee and Negev.
It's also possible that an opposition government would make a deal with the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). It would be short of a complete pullout, as happened with the 2005 Gaza disengagement, when Israel forcibly evicted some 8,000 Jewish residents. Instead, Israel would cede some territory in Judea and Samaria, perhaps expanding Palestinian control in Area B.
“At that point, for the settlements life will become so dangerous that many people will leave of their own accord,” he said. “Their communities won’t just stagnate, they’ll be strangled.”
Amir also expects that an opposition government will “unjustly” target Jewish residents of the region. Statistics show that the community is one of the least violent in the world, but the government will hunt down Jewish youth, he said.
“We’ve seen a lot of recent cases in which leftist provocateurs together with Arabs start throwing rocks at these kids, who then fight back. The leftists take a picture of them and that’s called ‘settler violence,’” he said. “The government will crack down. They’ll actually harass these kids and force them to make all kinds of false confessions. So my fear is not just for Judea and Samaria. I fear for the entire civil fabric in Israel.”
Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, who in June left his position as chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF), to join the Likud, also fears for the fabric of Israeli society, though for a different reason. He agreed that an opposition government won’t build at all in Judea and Samaria. “They are going to stop the budget for infrastructure and everything,” he told JNS.
Such a government will be dependent on its most extreme members, such as leader of The Democrats Party, Yair Golan, who said he wants to evacuate some 100 outposts in Judea and Samaria. It will also rely on Ra'am's Mansoor Abbas, and the Joint List, another Arab party. Too anti-Zionist to join any Israeli government, it nevertheless expressed readiness to back one from without provided it brings about the defeat of Netanyahu.
When Arabs within Israel see this, they will become emboldened, Avivi said.
“Israel’s internal situation is always delicate. We have a large Arab minority—larger, by the way, than those in France, Britain or Spain—and part of it is radicalized. If they sense that the Jews have relinquished sovereignty and that the government depends on Arab parties, it could motivate them to carry out an Oct. 7-style attack inside Israel. We saw a warning during ‘Guardians of the Wall’ with riots in mixed cities across Israel, including in the Galilee and the Negev. I believe this scenario could happen, and it is extremely dangerous,” Avivi said.
Avivi’s greatest concern is the combination of a far-left Israeli government with the rise of an anti-Israel American one. For the first two years, an opposition government may be satisfied with limited steps, such as freezing construction and rolling back budgets, but in two years the U.S. holds elections. If an anti-Israel administration is elected, it will put pressure on the Israeli government to accept a two-state solution. A radical left government already inclined to do that will agree to it, he said.
“So even if the first two years will not bring about dramatic changes, we're taking a huge strategic risk as we look ahead. This is why I say it’s really an existential vote; that we are voting for our lives,” Avivi said. “I'm not seeing it as a politician. I'm giving my professional assessment as a general. We are in very grave danger.”