As settlers expand their hold on the West Bank, Trump's election gives them even more hope

Supporters of Israel's decades-old settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territories have been quick to welcome Donald Trump's recent U.S. election victory and what they clearly expect will be a boon to their aim of formally annexing the West Bank.  

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, was confident enough to put a date on the aspiration during a Monday news conference in Jerusalem.   

"The year 2025 will, with God's help, be the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria," he said, using the Jewish biblical name for the West Bank.  

Smotrich added he intends to work with "the new administration of President Trump, and with the international community" toward that goal.  

For Palestinians still clinging to hope that the occupied territories including East Jerusalem will one day form the basis for a Palestinian state, it's one more thing to worry about on an already bleak horizon.  

Dror Etkes, an Israeli researcher and anti-settlement activist, said the Palestinians are right to worry, given the rate of settlement expansion during Trump's first presidency along with the makeup of the current Israeli government. 

Elected two years ago, the government is the most right-wing in Israel's history and includes extremist settlers in its cabinet. 

"They're going to annex a very, very big part of the West Bank, I assume," said Etkes. "Where [Israeli settlements] are today and where they want Israelis to be in the future." 

Israel captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan in 1967. Successive Israeli governments since have allowed Jewish settlements to expand and flourish on Palestinian land.  

The settlements are widely considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.  

Today, there are a half-million Jewish settlers in the West Bank alone, some living in large settlement blocs, others in smaller remote ones or in "outposts." Some settlers live there for economic reasons, others because they believe they have a divine right to the land.  

Violence against Palestinians by extremist settlers has been on the rise in recent years, spiking even more in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel.  

"Vicious. This is the word," said Etkes, describing what he calls a well-organized, well-funded campaign aimed in particular at Palestinian herding communities.

"Targeting one community after the other. And once you are getting rid of one community, you go to the next one. And to the next."