West Bank attacks on Washington Post journalist, diplomats may signal dangerous trend - analysis

No matter who is prime minister after October 27, if the situation in the West Bank does not come under control, violent Jewish extremists could become an even greater direct danger to Israel.

The 2023-2026 period is not the first time that a Jewish extremist beat or assaulted a foreign reporter or Western diplomat in the West Bank.

But in the past, when this happened, heads rolled. Whoever was involved was either arrested, fired, or both – and fast.

Often, some of their supervisors were fired or rebuked to make it clear that whoever was managing the area needed to establish a stricter environment to curb such a phenomenon if they wanted to keep their job.

In that sense, the assault on a Washington Post photojournalist in recent days, and what most are reporting as an assault on Western diplomats, is not new.

What is new is that the world assumes that the Israeli government will do nothing other than at most issue condemnations, and that the record of the last three years, and especially the last three months, would suggest they would be right.

Ben-Gvir accused of avoiding crackdown on settler violence

For two years, the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) accused National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of this and of pressuring the police into avoiding cracking down on Jewish extremist violence in the West Bank. Implicitly, they also held Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accountable for not firing Ben-Gvir.

Then, the Shin Bet got quieter for much of 2026 when Netanyahu appointed David Zini, who corralled the agency from involvement against Jewish extremist violence in the West Bank, but the IDF continued its accusations.

And even Zini, after the last few months of a spike in Jewish extremist violence like nothing Israel has seen in decades, recently started to pressure Netanyahu and the government to get more serious about a crackdown.

Yet, despite unanimous, repeated warnings by the defense establishment to Defense Minister Israel Katz and Netanyahu not to suspend the administrative detention of violent extremist Jews, and repeated warnings by the defense establishment to bring it back to get the situation under control, the defense establishment and the prime minister have either said “no” or are waiting until after the elections for any progress.

Their strategy has only encouraged the Jewish extremists to rush to perpetrate more widespread violence in the last three months, as they are concerned that maybe their free hand to attack Palestinians may get rolled back post-elections.

Once the Israeli government does nothing active to truly protect innocent Palestinians for an extended period, such lawlessness was eventually going to impact others in the West Bank, because Jewish extremists realize that the political and defense establishments are intimidated by them.

Netanyahu is afraid that if he confronts Ben-Gvir during election season, he may lose votes to the Otzma Yehudit Party by looking weak.

In this sad state of affairs, enforcing the rule of law in the West Bank has now become associated with looking weak.

Sanctions, US threats have had little effect on Netanyahu, Katz position

What is stunning is that the European and Western sanctions wave in mid-September, and threats from the Trump administration to potentially take some similar actions eventually, have done nothing to change Netanyahu’s and Katz’s position.

Part of this is likely because Netanyahu correctly estimated that Trump would support him in the election. After all, they converge on Iran-related issues, despite their disagreement over the West Bank.

On the same day that US Ambassador Mike Huckabee slammed Israel for mishandling the West Bank, Trump gave Netanyahu a full-throated endorsement because of their joint interests against Iran.

This may or may not decide the election in Netanyahu’s favor.

But whoever is prime minister after October 27, if the situation in the West Bank does not come under control, the defense establishment has warned that violent Jewish extremists, who have already attacked IDF soldiers dozens of times, could become an even greater direct danger to the State of Israel’s ability to function, let alone to its global image.

Palestinian terrorism is still a much bigger threat than Jewish extremist violence and terror. And the West Bank has always been seen as less important than Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria. But that strategy, or lack thereof, may finally implode with longer-term consequences that will be much harder to fix.