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Settlements: The Part of Greater Israel Already Being Built

If you have just heard that Iran is being bombed and want to know what "Greater Israel" looks like in real life, do not start with a map of the Nile and the Euphrates. Start with a hilltop in the West Bank. The map people argue about online is the horizon. The settlements are the part being built right now, with government money, army protection, and cabinet votes, while the world's attention is on the wars.

This page explains what a settlement is, who is building them, how fast, and how Israel's own ministers describe the purpose. The short answer, in the words of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who runs civilian affairs in the West Bank: the government is "for the first time taking responsibility for the territory as permanent sovereign" (Times of Israel, 19 February 2026).

A few terms first​

  • The West Bank is the land west of the Jordan River that Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war. Israeli officials call it Judea and Samaria, the biblical names.
  • Under the 1990s Oslo Accords the West Bank was split into Area A (Palestinian cities, Palestinian control), Area B (Palestinian civil control, Israeli security control), and Area C (about 60 percent of the land, full Israeli control).
  • A settlement is an Israeli civilian community built on that land. An outpost is one put up without formal approval. Approval often comes later, which is how outposts become settlements.
  • Annexation means formally applying Israeli law and sovereignty to a territory. De facto annexation means doing it in practice, through land, roads, planning, and administration, without a formal declaration.
  • Greater Israel, in Hebrew Eretz Yisrael HaShlema, "the Whole Land of Israel," is explained on What Greater Israel Means. Its narrow form, everything "between the Sea and the Jordan," is the written program of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party (see The Likud Charter and the Jordan River).

The program on paper​

The settlements are not an accident of zealots on hilltops. They are the stated program of the party and the government.

  • Likud's founding platform of 1977 says: "Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty," and calls settlement "in all parts of the Land of Israel" "the focal point of the Zionist effort" (Jewish Virtual Library).
  • The guidelines of Netanyahu's current government, signed in December 2022, open with: "The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel," and commit the government to develop settlement "in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan and Judea and Samaria" (Times of Israel, 28 December 2022).
  • On 23 July 2025 the Knesset, Israel's parliament, voted 71 to 13 for a motion declaring the West Bank "an inseparable part of the Land of Israel" and calling on the government to "apply Israeli sovereignty, law, judgment and administration" there. Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana: "In 1967, the occupation did not begin; it ended" (Times of Israel, 23 July 2025).

The paper trail, from 1977 to today, is laid out on The Likud Charter and the Jordan River and The 2022 Guidelines and the Nation-State Law.

The man with his hands on the levers​

In 2023 the government moved authority over civilian life in the West Bank to Smotrich, who is both finance minister and a minister inside the Defense Ministry. The Israeli monitoring group Peace Now records that in June 2023 the requirement for the defense minister's approval at each planning stage was removed and the authority handed to Smotrich (Peace Now, Annus Mirabilis report).

Smotrich has said plainly what he is doing with it. At a meeting of his Religious Zionism party in 2024, as reported by Haaretz, he said he was working to "establish facts on the ground in order to make Judea and Samaria an integral part of the state of Israel": "We will establish sovereignty … first on the ground and then through legislation. I intend to legalise the young settlements," and "My life's mission is to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state" (PoliticalJack forum quoting Haaretz, June 2024). On the method: "We created a separate civilian system...so that they won't say that we are doing annexation here" (Times of Israel, 19 February 2026).

In December 2025 he thanked the prime minister publicly: "I thank the Prime Minister for his support of the revolution we are carrying out in Judea and Samaria… Together we will kill the idea of a Palestinian state" (chronicle of statements, cwrc.ps).

Go deeper: Smotrich's "De Facto Sovereignty" Machine

How fast it is going​

The numbers come from Israeli sources, including Smotrich's own admirers.

  • Amit Segal, chief political analyst for Israel's Channel 12 and no critic of the right, wrote in February 2026 that "Since the last election, Smotrich has recognized 69 new settlements in Judea and Samaria. In the same time period, 150 farms have been built," and called it "his three-year plan to annex Judea and Samaria de facto, if not de jure" (Amit Segal on X, 16 February 2026).
  • Peace Now and Kerem Navot counted, for 2023 through early 2026: 185 new outposts, 102 new settlements, 40,064 housing units advanced, 118 Palestinian shepherding communities expelled, and farm outposts controlling more than 1.07 million dunams, about 18 percent of the West Bank. Their conclusion: the measures "constitute a single policy" (Peace Now, July 2026).
  • Responsible Statecraft counted 54 new settlements approved in 2025 alone, against 14 in the four Biden years, and 86 new outposts in 2025 (Responsible Statecraft, 29 May 2026).
  • J Street, an American pro-Israel group, writes that "Israel now fully controls 92% of Israel-Palestine" and that "this government now claims all the land of Israel-Palestine and is aggressively implementing a comprehensive, systematic plan to realize its vision of a Greater Israel" (J Street on X, 15 September 2026). That post was seen more than two million times.

Go deeper: Annexation by the Numbers, 2023 to 2026

The keystone: E1 and "Greater Jerusalem"​

E1 is a strip of land between Jerusalem and the large settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. Building there cuts the West Bank in two and cuts East Jerusalem off from any Palestinian state. For almost thirty years, every American president told Israel not to build it, and every Israeli prime minister obeyed. In August 2025 Smotrich approved it and said it "buries the idea of a Palestinian state" (Times of Israel, 14 August 2025). Amit Segal put the strategy in a line: "Greater Israel is a fantasy Israel's right largely gave up on years ago... But the dream of Greater Jerusalem is alive and well." Read carefully, that sentence is an admission: the expansion is real, and it has a new name.

Go deeper: E1 and "Greater Jerusalem"

Built under the cover of the Iran war​

The pace did not slow when the war with Iran began in 2026. It sped up. On 9 April 2026, while the war with Hezbollah continued and two days after President Trump announced a ceasefire with Iran, Israel announced approval of 34 new settlements, "badly undermining the ceasefire with Iran," as The Globe and Mail reported (Globe and Mail, 24 April 2026). According to Ynet, as summarized by an account that posted the report, the plan was approved at a secret meeting in March, was kept secret at the request of the United States, and went ahead over the objection of the army chief of staff that the army was overstretched (David Z on X, 9 April 2026). Responsible Statecraft reported that "Since the war with Iran began, settler violence has escalated further, averaging more than six attacks per day."

For an American family this matters directly: the war the United States is fighting alongside Israel is also the cover under which the map is being redrawn.

Go deeper: Settlements Approved During the Iran War

Who pays the price on the ground​

Settlements do not grow onto empty land. Peace Now counts 118 Palestinian shepherding communities expelled. B'Tselem counts about 45 Palestinian communities emptied since October 2023, as cited by The National. CNN's Jeremy Diamond reported from the village of Qusra in August 2026 that Israeli forces came "to dismantle the illegal outpost & kick out the settlers," then "Israeli forces have withdrawn & the settlers remain" (Jeremy Diamond, as quoted on X, 12 August 2026). A month later J Street wrote that what is happening in Qusra "is part of a state-backed policy to push Palestinians out of their homes and make way for Greater Israel" (J Street on X, 16 September 2026).

Go deeper: Settler Violence and the Emptied Villages

Gaza and the Golan​

The settlements are the West Bank piece of a larger pattern. Ministers have openly called for settling Gaza, and the army holds a "Yellow Line" in Gaza that its chief called "a new border line." The Golan Heights, taken from Syria in 1967, were formally annexed in 1981 and are being filled with new settlers. Those steps are covered on West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan: The Steps Already Taken and its pages on Gaza and the Golan. The settler leaders who want to go further, into Lebanon and Syria, speak for themselves on The Settler Movement in Its Own Words.

Where Washington stands​

American policy has swung with each administration. In 2019 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States no longer viewed the settlements as "inconsistent with international law"; in 2024 Secretary Antony Blinken reversed that. Today the U.S. ambassador, Mike Huckabee, writes: "I support Israelis living in Judea/Samaria where they have right to be" (Mike Huckabee on X, 5 September 2026), and after European governments recognized a Palestinian state, he suggested Israel respond by "declaring sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria" (Globe and Mail). The American side of the story is on America's Part in Greater Israel.

How strong is the evidence?​

  • The narrow Greater Israel (sea to Jordan, plus the Golan) is the written aim of the governing party, the coalition, and a Knesset majority: CONFIRMED.
  • The West Bank is being annexed in practice through settlements, outposts, land registration, and a civilian administration run by Smotrich: CONFIRMED in the ministers' own words ("permanent sovereign," "de facto sovereignty").
  • Settlement approvals accelerated during the Iran war: STRONG.

Status: Bezalel Smotrich, Benjamin Netanyahu, Amir Ohana, Amit Segal, Mike Huckabee, Mike Pompeo, Antony Blinken, and Jeremy Diamond are alive. Nothing on this page states that any of them committed a crime.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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