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For weeks, the question on Palestine hurled incessantly at every talking head, expert and nonexpert alike, has been “what comes next?” A full-scale genocide in Gaza has morphed into a semi-ceasefire, an on-off Israeli war that will test the Trump administration’s resolve. How long can senior American figures spend “Bibi-sitting” before the president gets fed up?

But if the new normal becomes this slowed down genocide, with fewer bombings and minimal aid, what are Benjamin Netanyahu’s options? For the last two years, his approach has been escalation on steroids. He possibly fears quiet on the domestic front and what that might mean for his court appearances, so he has fired up every front from Gaza to Iran.

All fronts are viable options for the Israeli leader. Iran might be the riskiest. Syria perhaps not right now as the new Syrian president is heading to Washington in a week’s time. Netanyahu is eyeing up Lebanon, with the intensity of Israeli strikes increasing.

Yet the West Bank must be the most tempting item on the geopolitical arsonist’s menu. Firstly, this is what matters to him and his fellow firebrands in the ruling Israeli coalition. Finalizing the takeover of the West Bank is the dream of the “Greater Israel” fan club. Secondly, not only would he superglue his shaky coalition together for some more time, but he also would be less likely to encounter internal opposition to this. Thirdly, US President Donald Trump may have ruled out formal annexation of the West Bank, but this is not what matters — it is the program of ethnic cleansing and settler colonization that endangers Palestinian existence. Between January and mid-September, Israel approved a record 25,000 settlement units.

Annexation is a distraction. Netanyahu can deploy it as a nuclear option and threaten international actors with this. He used it to secure the Abraham Accords, pretending that an agreement not to annex was some major concession, just as Trump is portraying his veto on annexation as him being tough with Bibi.

The reality is that the West Bank is already under full Israeli control. Israeli civil law applies across the territory — for Israelis. Palestinians endure Israeli military law. The system of apartheid is well entrenched. If Netanyahu annexes, Israel will then have to fight off even fiercer claims of apartheid, as more than 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank would be living in Israel but without citizenship or the vote.

It is the program of ethnic cleansing and settler colonization that endangers Palestinian existence

Chris Doyle

Even without annexation, the settler movement can, with the direct assistance of the army, continue its fearsome assault on rural Palestinian communities. The last week of October saw 60 settler attacks on Palestinians, although victims often no longer bother to report them.

The aim is strategic. Empty key areas such as the South Hebron Hills of all Palestinians, forcing them into the cities, so that settlements can expand and further exert a stranglehold on the Palestinian existence in the area. The E1 doomsday plan will proceed.

At the same time as Gaza has been annihilated, the Israeli army has busily gone about a quieter but still devastating invasion of the northern West Bank, targeting refugee camps in particular. Israel has used planes and heavy weaponry on a scale not seen since the height of the Second Intifada.

Netanyahu’s option will be to take that assault to all areas of the West Bank, which will become an easier scenario if fewer Israeli troops are required in Gaza. How many of the 19 refugee camps in the West Bank will not have been invaded in a year’s time? Combine that with the evisceration of UNRWA and the whole issue of Palestinian refugees will have been dealt a near-lethal blow.

An additional benefit for the Israeli prime minister will be to expose the weakness and irrelevance of the Palestinian Authority, which this Israeli coalition loathes, denying it even the most minimal role in Gaza. It has rendered it impotent in terms of security and, courtesy of a raft of measures by settler and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, reduced it to near bankruptcy.

The West Bank economy has been crushed. Its gross domestic product shrank by 17 percent in 2024. Without Israeli measures, the Palestinian West Bank economy between 2000 and 2024 would have been 68 percent larger, equivalent to a loss of $170 billion. Movement and access have been reduced, with a whole phalanx of new barriers and checkpoints making journeys longer, more arduous and dangerous. Settler pogroms are frequent, with settlers attacking homes and businesses and burning cars. During this year’s olive harvest, the UN reports that more than 4,000 olive trees have been vandalized. Settlers, helped by their new outposts, deny Palestinians access to ever more of their olive groves. The price of Palestinian olive oil is rocketing.

The PA is effectively bankrupt. Salaries cannot be paid. It cannot invest in public infrastructure. What is left may collapse at any moment.

This highlights why Trump’s proposals being restricted to Gaza is so flawed. The West Bank and Gaza are part of the state of Palestine. This is being pulverized in its entirety. It is not just Gaza.

• Chris Doyle is director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding in London. X: @Doylech