IDF blatant backing settler violence may make annexation harder?

JVL Introduction

In this interview with +972 Magazine, Yigal Levy describes what is happening to the Israeli Army in the West Bank and opines that it has two sides: an “offical” side and a “policing” side that supports settlers ousting Palestinian communities, failing to let them return even when they are High Court decisions that the people can return.  They are ever more closely linked to the most hardline of the settler movement, not least because so many of them are from that background.  This is also not new and importantly, it is not confined to this far right government.  More than 14 years ago, an ex soldier told me that when he served he took instruction from the Head of the Settlement Security rather than IDF commanders and so this has been happening for at least 20 years.  However, recent years and the presence of hardline settlers at all levels of the Israeli State – not least politically and militarily – has meant that this is ever more entrenched.

Even  many of those who are concerned about the levels of settler violence, are concerned about them moving too too fast and that this will bring condemnation from outside and make annexation harder rather than easier.  Indeed Yigal Levy says that many argue that “violence is not only unnecessary [in the eyes of the army] but harmful. It endangers order in the West Bank as well as the legitimacy of creeping annexation, which can only take place below the radar. The escalation of violence brings that process above the radar, and it is no coincidence that [U.S.] Ambassador Mike Huckabee, himself a supporter of annexation, intervened.

Commander Bluth (Central Command)wants to address settler violence but not to protect Palestinians:  “boasted that Israel kills “like we haven’t killed since 1967,” and his escalation of military operations in the West Bank, such as the systematic destruction and expulsion of the Jenin refugee camp is an important component of importing methods from Gaza into the West Bank. In this way, violence is not merely institutionalized but intensified.”

But, it is about more than settlements and annexation of the West Bank as this article shows.

This article was originally published by +972 Magazine with Local Call on Fri 25 Sep 2026. Read the original here.