Skip to main content
Regional secretary with the National Education Union
Netanyahu’s provocations are a desperate and doomed strategy
By trying to appease his far-right coalition partners and their desire for all-out religious war on what is left of Palestine, Netanyahu is provoking an armed uprising in the West Bank, writes RAMZY BAROUD
IDF soldiers stand guard as Jewish settlers rebuild the previously illegal settlement of Homesh in the West Bank

AFTER signing a military decree on May 18, allowing illegal Israeli Jewish settlers to reclaim the abandoned Homesh settlement located in the northern occupied West Bank, the Israeli government has informed the US Biden administration that it will not turn the area into a new settlement.

The latter revelation was reported by Axios on May 23. This contradiction is hardly surprising. While Israel’s far-right ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, know precisely what they want, Netanyahu is trying to perform an impossible political act: he wants to fulfil all the wishes of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, but without veering off from the US political agenda in the Middle East, and without creating the circumstances that could eventually topple the Palestinian Authority.

Moreover, Netanyahu wants to normalise with Arab governments, while continuing to colonise Palestine, expand settlements and have complete control over Al-Aqsa Mosque and other Palestinian Muslim and Christian holy shrines.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Israeli army vehicles moves in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel on July 6, 2025
Features / 8 July 2025
8 July 2025

RAMZY BAROUD highlights a new report by special rapporteur Francesca Albanese that unflinchingly names and shames the companies that have enabled Israel’s bloody massacre in Gaza

An Israeli Defense Forces tank is towed near the Israel-Gaza border, southern Israel, June 26, 2025
Features / 1 July 2025
1 July 2025

Israel’s genocide in Palestine and wars against its neighbours would be impossible without constant Western support — so we must amplify the brave voices demanding a halt, argues DR RAMZY BAROUD

Masked fans form a ‘Free Palestine’ sign during a Champions League match at Signal Iduna Park, Dortmund, October 1, 2024
Football / 11 June 2025
11 June 2025

Fifa must be held to account over its continued support for Israel, writes RAMZY BAROUD

Israeli troops move with APC, armored personnel carrier, near the border with Gaza, in southern Israel, May 8, 2025
Features / 15 May 2025
15 May 2025

RAMZY BAROUD on how Israel’s narrative collides with military failure

Similar stories
Features / 6 January 2025
6 January 2025
The Israeli PM has won political favour by repeatedly playing the victim card – but when the war on Gaza ends this kind of manoeuvring will no longer suffice in order to maintain his coalition, says RAMZY BAROUD
Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvi
Features / 22 October 2024
22 October 2024
Rejecting its painfully dishonest claim of self-defence, RAMZY BAROUD warns that the biblical language being used by the Israeli regime is evidence of its deepening commitment to a ‘greater Israel’ created by violent expansionism
SETTLER VIOLENCE: Mourners in the West Bank city of Bethlehe
Features / 5 September 2024
5 September 2024
RAMZY BAROUD exposes the growing rift between Israel’s religious zealots and its security establishment, as Kahanist ideology and growing settler violence begin to destabilise the delicate balance of the occupation regime
A Palestinian films a torched vehicle, seen the morning afte
Features / 19 August 2024
19 August 2024
The war in Gaza is being used as the perfect smokescreen to finalise old colonial plans in the West Bank, argues RAMZY BAROUD