State postponed until further notice!

By deciding to establish 22 new settlements across the occupied West Bank, the far-right government has left no room for doubt regarding its true intentions regarding the Palestinian territories, or even the entire national project. This is no longer a matter of mere settlement expansion or security pretexts, but rather a clear and direct declaration that the very idea of an independent Palestinian state, regardless of its form or location, is being undermined. It is transforming the West Bank into a permanent arena of settlement influence, managed with a declared and irreversible annexation mentality.

The decision, described by the ruling right in Tel Aviv as a once-in-a-generation decision, came at the height of the aggression on Gaza, at a time when the so-called international community was talking about the need to return to the so-called “political process,” the negotiating table, and the “two-state solution” option. While Riyadh and Paris were at the forefront of calling for an international conference in June to revive this option, a June that carries a painful memory, the anniversary of the Naksa, the fall of Jerusalem, and its Judaization, the settler government preempted those efforts, and today it is drawing on the ground a new reality, in which there is no room for any independent Palestinian entity, but rather a maze of settlements, expanding like a cancer from the north of the West Bank to its south, in the Jordan Valley, in an engineering plan aimed at dismembering the Palestinian land and isolating its regions from one another.

The profound significance of what happened goes beyond the geographic or demographic dimensions, but extends to the political and legal structure of the occupation. In Tel Aviv, the discussion is no longer about security or dictating terms, but rather about an alleged "religious right," about reclaiming the "ancestral heritage," and formally imposing sovereignty over occupied territory, in direct defiance of all international laws and resolutions, and indeed the entire UN system.

In light of the clear support of the Zionist right, and the decline of real international pressure, the Netanyahu government is no longer hiding its intentions. Rather, we see it baring its fangs and announcing its project: to consolidate settlements, make them a lived reality, and prevent any possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state. This constitutes a strategic blow to any Palestinian effort to establish a state, and leads, among other things, to a series of major risks, the first of which is the swallowing of geography and the elimination of any chance of establishing a Palestinian state, by fragmenting the land and turning it into isolated enclaves surrounded by settlements and bypass roads.

This also leads to the effective erosion of the remaining role of the Palestinian Authority, making it appear more like a service-oriented administration operating under actual Israeli "sovereignty," rather than a national leadership leading a liberation project.

The risks do not stop there, but extend to the entrenchment of an apartheid regime in the West Bank, where settlers are governed by civil laws, while Palestinians are governed by military laws.

Faced with this scenario, the Palestinian Authority has not demonstrated any effective strategy for confrontation, whatever its form. For years, it has actually and gradually retreated from supporting peaceful popular resistance, even if the public discourse continues to repeat this without interruption. Rather, it has slipped into complete dependence on the international system, raising the slogan of turning to the United Nations, international courts, and the international community. However, it has not prepared a cumulative plan for this path, nor has it developed real pressure tools. Rather, it has used these cards intermittently and separately, to the point that it no longer frightens Tel Aviv or moves the international community. With each new violation, it is content with issuing statements of condemnation and threatening to review the agreements, without taking practical steps on the ground.

Today, the Palestinian Authority appears toothless, without real legitimacy, and without a political project capable of mobilizing the Palestinians, or even confronting the occupation, even peacefully. Its excessive reliance on external powers has emptied its tools of any substance. The international community, which it calls upon morning and evening to come to its aid, is paralyzed and lacks the will, or even the desire, to impose any cost on the occupation. The system of international law has become powerless in the face of the balance of power, the use of the American veto, and the selectivity in implementing international resolutions.

The authority's bet on this system has become futile. Rather, it is like waiting for a mirage in the desert. The "new" settlements are not just a link in an ongoing crime, but they are an official obituary for the two-state solution and the undermining of the Palestinian national project in its form since Oslo. With every settlement that is established, the dream fades into the labyrinths of imaginary lines. Unless this reality is boldly acknowledged, and the national project and its tools are not redefined, what will remain of Palestine will be a shadow of a homeland, an echo of a dream, and with it an authority suspended in the air, guarding a map without a land, devoured by settlements, and drowned in the silence of the world and the blood of innocents.