Can Trump save Israel from itself?

Israeli soldiers escort Israeli settlers as they walk through the Old City of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on Jan. 30. Photo by Mosab Shawer / Middle East Images via AFP/Getty Images

Contributing Columnist Sruli Fruchter February 12, 2026

The Israeli government’s latest steps toward annexing the West Bank prove a dismal point: Catering to right-wing extremists has become the cabinet’s top priority — the rest of the country be damned.

In a blitz before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s White House visit this week, Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced new decisions that will reverse decades-old real estate laws preventing Jews from buying Palestinian-owned land in the West Bank; expand Israeli authority in vast swaths of that territory; and make it easier for Jewish Israelis to buy land and start new communities in or near Palestinian enclaves there, among other subtle changes.

These changes may seem like bureaucratic rejiggering. But in fact, they mark the alarming development of a deliberate strategy to incrementally expand Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, thus killing the two-state solution once and for all.

None of this serves Israel’s best interest. New laws pushing annexation forward will jeopardize Israel’s relationship with the U.S., damage its already faltering democracy, and eradicate any moral high ground the Jewish state still retains after its devastating military campaign in Gaza.

Yet while Israel struggles with a weakened international profile, an economy still recovering from the demands of war, impending talks with Iran, internal democratic conflicts and a re-emboldened Hamas within the decimated Gaza strip, proponents of the new decisions are celebrating the disaster they herald.

“We are deepening our roots in all regions of the Land of Israel and burying the idea of a Palestinian state,” Smotrich said in a statement.

The Yesha Council — the municipal representative for all Israeli settlements, which wants to expand Israeli sovereignty over the entire West Bank — declared the government’s move was “establishing Israeli sovereignty in the territory de facto.”

Energy Minister Eli Cohen might have put it most plainly, saying the changes “actually establish a fact on the ground that there will not be a Palestinian state,” in an interview with Israel’s Army Radio.

The only emergency brake on annexation Israelis have at this moment is sitting in the White House.

Although President Donald Trump flirted with Israeli annexation early in his second-term, he has consistently opposed such moves over the last few months. Asked on Tuesday about the Israeli security cabinet’s recent decisions, Trump spoke bluntly: “I am against annexation.”

He has powerful incentives to back up that statement.

Since returning to office last year, Trump has branded himself a peacemaker who will reshape the Middle East. He aims to expand the Abraham Accords, the trademark foreign policy achievement of his first term; curb a nuclear Iran; and create peace between Israel and the Palestinians. He will not tolerate any Israeli behavior that threatens those efforts — and these West Bank moves could upend them.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and five other Muslim countries condemned Israel’s new laws as accelerating “illegal annexation and the displacement of the Palestinian people” — a complaint Saudi Arabia previously lodged against Israel as its reason for refusing normalization, something Trump desperately wants.

Additionally, Trump’s peace plan for Gaza hinges on creating stability in the embattled Strip and the West Bank. Most importantly, it involves a commitment to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which these moves in the West Bank may make all but impossible to realize.

All this, as American views of Israel are only growing more antagonistic, with real-world policy changes like conditioning military aid receiving more serious consideration than previously thought possible. Israel also faces domestic consequences over this decision. It has long defended itself against accusations of apartheid by saying that it cannot grant citizenship to the millions of Palestinians in the West Bank because the Jewish state cannot afford to lose its Jewish majority. Until trusted Palestinian partners for peace emerged, the narrative went, Israel would maintain control of the territory.

This is not maintaining control of the territory; this is laying claim to it, an action that demands Israel must treat the Palestinians who live there as full citizens. It is unlikely to do so. Which means Israel’s democracy is closer than ever to crumbling. If it insists on burying the two-state solution and annexing the West Bank without giving citizenship to millions of Palestinians, any defense it had against the argument of apartheid will be gone.

What might the Israeli government hope to gain with these moves, given how extraordinarily costly they could be — and seeing that annexation is widely unpopular in Israeli society, with only about a third of Israelis supporting it?

The answer: Netanyahu is going all-in for his far-right allies. It’s not about what Israel hopes to gain; it’s about what he does.

Smotrich, Katz, and others whose radical messianic conceptions dominate their politics have for years fantasized about expanding Israel’s borders without international or domestic law interfering. Throughout the Israel-Hamas War, far-right leaders routinely spoke enthusiastically about annexing the Gaza Strip.

If Netanyahu were putting Israelis before his own political interests, he would have squashed calls for annexation long before now. But doing so would threaten his political career. Smotrich and other far-right ministers put expanding Israeli control over the West Bank as a dealbreaker when they first entered his coalition; if they leave it, his last hope at retaining power will go with them.

When it comes to choosing between power or his country, Netanyahu has shown he will always choose power. Let’s hope Trump continues to stand in his way.