How the West Bank is the International Order’s Ultimate Test

The question of the West Bank has transcended its status as a mere component of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict to become a substantive test of the coherence of international law and the deterrence foundations upon which the post–Second World War international order was built.

On 9 February 2026, the Israeli Security Cabinet endorsed a package of extraordinary measures designed to consolidate Israeli control over the West Bank. The measures included rescinding the longstanding prohibition on the sale of land to Jews through the repeal of the Jordanian statute that barred the transfer of Palestinian property to Jewish purchasers; lifting the confidentiality of land registry records; transferring planning and construction powers in parts of Hebron from the Palestinian municipality to the Israeli Civil Administration; and broadening oversight and demolition authorities to extend into Areas A and B, which fall under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction in accordance with the Oslo Accords.

These decisions are likely to generate profound structural transformations in property registration and transfer regimes by permitting the public disclosure of landowners’ identities. Such disclosure opens the way for direct negotiations between Israeli purchasers and Palestinian proprietors, thereby facilitating a faster pace of acquisition and further entrenching settlement expansion throughout the West Bank.

In this context, the Israeli Settlement Council (Yesha) characterised the measures as “the most consequential in fifty-eight years,” portraying them as an effective governmental declaration of the restoration of the Land of Israel to its people. These moves do not represent an isolated incident; rather, they constitute one stage in an intensifying trajectory that, over the past two years, has fundamentally reshaped the conflict's underlying parameters, generating a transformed reality that necessitates analytical frameworks beyond traditional paradigms.

To confine analysis of Israeli expansion in the West Bank to a mere episode within the Palestinian–Israeli conflict constitutes a reductive reading that fails to capture the depth of the transformations underway. The West Bank is not the final station in a trajectory of territorial consolidation; rather, it forms part of a wider chain of border and identity struggles reshaping the Arab Mashreq as a whole. From Syria in the aftermath of the Assad regime’s collapse in December 2024, to an Iraq that continues to wrestle with entrenched structural fragility, and extending to a Lebanon debilitated both institutionally and economically, the region is moving into a critical phase of systemic reconfiguration.

The Arab Mashreq stands at a pivotal juncture in which its political and social order is undergoing substantive reconfiguration. Long-deferred reckonings have accumulated across multiple theatres, foreshadowing renewed trials for both regional and international actors. Political and military contests over sovereignty are likely to intensify in states that remain engaged in the fundamental struggle to consolidate authority over their entire national territory.

What defines the current phase is the transformation of instability from a passing condition into the organising principle of the region. Israel is no longer confined to expanding its territorial footprint; it is reconfiguring the very structure of the occupation by shifting governing powers from the military echelon to civilian authorities. The aim is to institutionalise a form of permanent control that avoids the formal designation of “annexation,” while substantively enacting it on the ground.

This shift is being driven by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who, since February 2023, has exercised expansive authority over planning and civil affairs through the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories and its executive arm, the Civil Administration. Military legal advisers have warned that this trajectory constitutes de facto annexation, thereby exposing Israel to potential accountability before the International Court of Justice.

In the context of the region’s ongoing structural transformations, developments on the ground are translating political trajectories into concrete alterations in the territorial landscape. By the end of 2025, data indicated that the number of settlements in the West Bank had reached approximately 350, including nearly 200 unauthorised outposts that the government is advancing toward legal regularisation, as well as 35 industrial zones and an extensive network of bypass roads.

In December of the same year, the Israeli Security Cabinet approved plans for the establishment of 19 new settlements, a development the Palestinian side characterised as an entrenchment of “demographic engineering.” At the same time, numerous monitoring organisations have documented a pronounced acceleration in settlement planning and construction, particularly in 2025.

The implications of this expansion extend well beyond numerical increase to encompass a deliberate reordering of the West Bank’s geography through interlocking blocs of settlements and associated infrastructure. Such configurations progressively erode territorial contiguity, rendering geographic connectivity between the northern, central, and southern regions increasingly precarious. Although Israeli control remains concentrated in Area C, which constitutes approximately 60% of the West Bank, enforcement mechanisms and planning prerogatives have begun to encroach upon elements of governance within Areas A and B. This incremental extension of authority steadily contracts the Palestinian Authority’s effective administrative domain.

These geographic transformations extend beyond questions of spatial control to raise fundamental legal concerns regarding the nature of the prevailing order. In January 2026, a report issued by the United Nations Human Rights Office expressed serious concern about the application of divergent legal regimes to populations residing in the same geographic area. It described the policies in question as exhibiting characteristics of institutionalised discrimination that may intersect with established categories in international law, including the definition of apartheid.

The report grounded its concerns in indicators related to investigative procedures in cases of violence, highlighting disparities in the application of legal accountability. It further underscored that the isolation of population centres, coupled with mounting socio-economic pressures, may approach the prohibitions enshrined in international law regarding forcible transfer. These observations are consistent with the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion issued in July 2024 and with broader United Nations positions affirming that the de facto annexation of territory contravenes established principles of the international order.

Amid these accelerating transformations, it may be tempting to assume that the United States alone possesses the requisite leverage to arrest Israel’s trajectory. A closer reading of American conduct over the past two years, however, reveals a more intricate pattern, oscillating between declared opposition and tacit accommodation.

In September 2025, President Trump stated in unequivocal terms: “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Nope. I will not allow. It’s not gonna happen.” When the Knesset granted preliminary approval in October 2025, by a narrow majority, to a bill extending sovereignty, Vice President JD Vance characterised the move as reckless and a personal affront, while Secretary of State Rubio warned of its potential repercussions for the administration’s Gaza framework. The stance was reiterated in February 2026, when the White House reaffirmed its opposition to annexation, maintaining that stability in the West Bank constitutes a cornerstone of Israel’s security and of the administration’s broader diplomatic orientation.

Yet a conspicuous paradox lies in the widening gap between rhetoric and practice. The most recent U.S. statement refrained from issuing a direct condemnation of the Israeli Security Cabinet’s measures or from explicitly referencing their inconsistency with the Oslo Accords. Following his meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu in late January 2026, President Trump confined himself to expressing confidence that Netanyahu would “ultimately do the right thing.”

This approach, rejecting formal annexation while acquiescing to de facto annexation, reveals a layered equation that moves beyond a simple binary of endorsement or opposition. It can be interpreted in terms of three strategic determinants. First, safeguarding the durability of the Abraham Accords, which Trump views as a hallmark diplomatic achievement that formal annexation could imperil. Second, managing a fragile equilibrium of controlled disorder aimed at curbing the influence of rivals such as Iran, Russia, and China, even if this entails the continuation of settlement expansion, so long as developments do not spiral into a comprehensive conflagration. Third, instrumentalising the West Bank file as a bargaining lever in broader strategic negotiations, a dynamic underscored by the anticipated summit between the two leaders, which is expected to prioritise the Iranian dossier over the Palestinian question

Put differently, Washington has transitioned from a self-styled architect of peace seeking a comprehensive settlement to a crisis manager focused on preventing Israeli expansion from spilling into an overt diplomatic confrontation, without exhibiting substantive resolve to arrest its trajectory.

Parallel to Washington’s ambivalent posture, annexation efforts cannot be viewed in isolation from a systematic strategy of economic strangulation designed to erode the Palestinian Authority as a governing entity and presumed interlocutor. Israel continues to withhold approximately $4.5 billion in tax clearance revenues collected on the Authority’s behalf pursuant to the Oslo economic arrangements, a measure the Palestinian Minister of National Economy has characterised as a codified form of “collective punishment”.

These pressures have precipitated a sharp surge in unemployment in the West Bank, from 12% to nearly 32%, alongside a 25% contraction in gross domestic product, and have coincided with a deterioration in poverty levels and indicators of food insecurity.

This financial attrition is not an incidental byproduct but a core component of a deliberate strategy to dismantle the Palestinian governing architecture. The Israeli system no longer appears invested in managing the conflict through economic inducements or maintaining the status quo; rather, it is explicitly advancing the erosion of the Authority’s operational viability and the consolidation of comprehensive control over the central domains of Palestinian life, thereby foreclosing any meaningful prospect of independence or sovereignty.

In this context, the collapse of the Authority would not generate a chaotic vacuum. Still, a calibrated one, structured to be swiftly absorbed by mechanisms of direct Israeli administration, thereby effectively extinguishing the residual political framework on which the two-state solution has rested.

Against the backdrop of a deliberately engineered vacuum and the progressive erosion of Palestinian governance, a fundamental question arises as to whether this trajectory can, in fact, be arrested. In this regard, four potential vectors of deterrence may be identified, differentiated according to the actors involved and varying in both their likelihood of materialisation and their prospective effectiveness:

• Direct American deterrence: In theory, this remains the most consequential lever. Its effectiveness, however, hinges on a political will that appears lacking. President Trump’s statements opposing annexation, rather than constraining Netanyahu, have instead provided him with manoeuvring room vis-à-vis his hardline allies under the banner of “the American position.” So long as Washington confines itself to declaratory rhetoric without coupling it with tangible measures, such as suspending military assistance or revisiting preferential trade arrangements, this deterrent will remain little more than ink on paper.

 

• Regional deterrence: Arab states engaged in normalisation retain a meaningful lever of influence through the prospect of suspending the “Abraham Accords.” As evidenced in 2020, when the Emirati warning played a role in arresting formal annexation, activating this instrument today would necessitate a firm and coordinated Arab position. Despite the recurrence of warnings, however, the requisite collective resolve has yet to crystallise.

 

• International legal deterrence: This vector encompasses proceedings before the International Criminal Court, in which Netanyahu has already been implicated, alongside efforts to activate the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, as well as the widening recognition of the State of Palestine, which gathered momentum in 2025. Notwithstanding its symbolic weight, this pathway remains constrained by procedural protraction and limited immediate impact on realities on the ground.

 

• On-the-ground deterrence: This dimension concerns the security and human costs associated with the perpetuation of the occupation, including the prospect of escalating both popular and armed resistance in the West Bank. It represents a double-edged dynamic, insofar as the Israeli right may instrumentalise such developments to legitimise intensified repression and further settlement expansion.

In sum, the current reality in the West Bank cannot be reduced to an exclusively Palestinian–Israeli issue; rather, it constitutes a demanding test of the international system’s capacity to safeguard its foundational principles. When the acquisition of territory by force becomes achievable through incremental measures carried out without accountability; when the highest legal authorities, including the advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice, are reduced to static texts devoid of operative effect; and when the United Nations designates a situation as apartheid without such characterisation generating tangible action, the central question moves beyond the hypothesis of West Bank annexation itself.

What is ultimately at stake is the character of the international order that will prevail should such annexation proceed without consequence. The West Bank has thus become a reflective surface for the condition of that order, and the image it reveals offers little reassurance.

Crisis Group. “Sovereignty in All but Name: Israel’s Quickening Annexation of the West Bank,” October 9, 2025. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.crisisgroup.org/rpt/middle-east-north-africa/israelpalestine/252-sovereignty-all-name-israels-quickening-annexation-west-bank

Gjevori, Elis. “Israel Approves 19 New West Bank Settlements in Major Annexation Push.” Al Jazeera, December 12, 2025. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/12/israel-approves-19-new-west-bank-settlements-in-major-annexation-push

Hess, Amandine. “Palestinian Minister Calls on Israel to Release $4 Billion of Tax Revenues.” Euronews, November 24, 2025. https://www.euronews.com/2025/11/24/palestinian-minister-calls-on-israel-to-release-4-billion-of-tax-revenues

Magid, Jacob. “US stresses opposition to annexation after Israel takes steps to expand West Bank grip.” Times of Israel, February 10, 2026. https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-stresses-opposition-to-annexation-after-israeli-steps-to-expand-west-bank-grip/

Melchior, Itai. “Why Israel’s Push for West Bank Annexation Is Going Mainstream—and What It Means for the Abraham Accords – Atlantic Council.” Atlantic Council, October 2, 2025. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/why-israels-push-for-west-bank-annexation-is-going-mainstream-and-what-it-means-for-the-abraham-accords/

Salem, Mostafa. “UAE Warns Israel’s West Bank Annexation Would Cross ‘Red Line’ and End Regional Integration Efforts.” CNN. September 3, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/03/middleeast/uae-israel-abraham-accords-trump-netanyahu-intl

Stockwell, Billy, Helen Regan, and Aditi Sangal. “Trump Says He Won’t Allow Israel to Annex West Bank.” CNN. September 26, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/25/politics/trump-says-he-wont-allow-israel-to-annex-west-bank

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. “Israel Ramps up Settlement and Annexation in West Bank With Dire Human Rights Consequences,” March 18, 2025. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/03/israel-ramps-settlement-and-annexation-west-bank-dire-human-rights