Israeli Cabinet Move on West Bank Policy Fuels Claims of Sovereignty Push in Judea and Samaria
Administrative reforms shift land registration, planning authority, and enforcement powers in ways supporters call modernization and critics warn could reshape territorial governance
Israel’s security cabinet approved a package of West Bank policy changes on February 8, 2026—moves promoted by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz that supporters cast as legal modernization and critics describe as de facto annexation-by-administration.
The decisions go after the levers that shape daily life in the territory: who can buy land, who can access ownership records, who approves construction, and which authority enforces the rules. Israeli officials often refer to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, and the cabinet’s package adopted that terminology.
The changes are not minor. The cabinet moved to repeal Jordanian-era restrictions that effectively prevented Israeli Jews from purchasing West Bank land directly, a step Israeli media and watchdog groups say would allow private purchases without the workarounds previously required.
It also directed authorities to open—or declassify—land registry records that have long been inaccessible, a change that proponents say adds transparency and opponents warn could expose Palestinian landowners to pressure and fraud.
On planning and oversight, the cabinet approved steps that shift decision-making in parts of Hebron to Israeli authorities and expand Israeli enforcement powers on issues such as environmental hazards, water violations, and damage to archaeological sites—extending into Areas A and B, where the Palestinian Authority (PA) exercises varying degrees of civil control under Oslo-era arrangements.
The cabinet also backed reviving a state land-acquisition mechanism, including a committee intended to facilitate state-backed land purchases for settlement development.
Inside Israel, the real debate is not over technical details but over what the changes are meant to achieve politically. Supporters argue the measures bring coherence to a patchwork of Ottoman, British Mandate, and Jordanian-era property rules still embedded in the territory’s administration. Critics counter that steps presented as “administrative” can harden into lasting political reality when they shift authority away from Palestinian institutions and deepen Israeli civilian governance beyond Israel’s recognized borders.
Polls suggest why a fight over land registries quickly turns into a fight over sovereignty. A 2026 poll sponsored by the pro-settlement Sovereignty Movement and the right-leaning Pulse of Israel advocacy organization found that 71% of Israelis oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state in the territory, and that 68% support some form of Israeli sovereignty in part or all of the West Bank, including 25% who favor full sovereignty throughout the territory.
A separate December 2024 poll by Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies found that 54% of Israelis oppose establishing a Palestinian state, while 42% backed Israeli sovereignty over part or all of the West Bank, including 21% favoring full Israeli sovereignty throughout the territory.
Among Palestinians, polling points in the opposite direction. A September 2024 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), led by Khalil Shikaki, found that roughly two-thirds of Palestinians rejected a permanent settlement framework that would formalize Israeli sovereign arrangements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The reaction abroad was swift. Several Muslim-majority states—including Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia—issued condemnations framed around sovereignty and international law.
The European Union also voiced concern, reiterating its position that the settlement enterprise is illegal under international law and warning the measures could undermine prospects for a negotiated outcome.
US administrations have historically opposed unilateral changes to the West Bank’s status, and the timing added sensitivity: the decisions were announced days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s expected meeting in Washington with President Donald Trump, with Iran and broader regional coordination also on the agenda.
The Trump administration has not issued a direct public response to the cabinet-approved measures, leaving Washington’s stance inferred from broader policy signals—opposition to formal annexation paired with limited public criticism of incremental administrative steps.
In the United States, the sovereignty debate has increasingly spilled into a fight over terminology. A bill introduced in Congress—the “RECOGNIZING Judea and Samaria Act”—would restrict federal funds from being used for official materials that use the term “West Bank,” and would push federal terminology toward “Judea and Samaria,” but it remains unenacted.
State lawmakers have gone further. In Arkansas, a 2025 law—Act 797—created the “Recognizing Judea and Samaria Act” and directed state agencies to stop using “West Bank” in official government materials.
In Florida, legislators advanced parallel measures in early 2026 that would bar state agencies and public school materials from using “West Bank” and require “Judea and Samaria” instead; the bills moved quickly through the legislature, reflecting how aggressively the terminology fight has migrated into state politics.
Supporters describe these efforts as restoring historical language. In US governance terms, they are unusual: Congress and statehouses rarely legislate specific foreign-policy geographic wording, which is typically left to executive-branch diplomacy and agency style guidance.
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American opinion on Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank remains divided, often sharply along religious and partisan lines. Evangelical Christians have historically been among the most supportive constituencies for Israeli territorial claims, often rooted in theological readings and reinforced by conservative political alignment.
Jewish American opinion is more mixed and less uniformly supportive of annexation or sovereignty proposals, with attachment to Israel often coexisting with concerns about settlement expansion, democratic norms, and Israel’s international standing.
Among the broader US public, recent surveys show more skepticism toward unilateral sovereignty moves than among evangelical constituencies, with attitudes toward Israel itself increasingly polarized by party and age—dynamics that shape how sovereignty proposals land in Washington.
Within Israel’s opposition, criticism has focused less on the substance of the policy than on its timing. Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party, argued the decision could weaken regional alignment against Iran.
“The stance of Yesh Atid is that these things need to be done in the proper manner and moment,” Lapid told The Media Line. “Right now, in the midst of a global organization against Iran, while there are negotiations in Oman, while there is an Israeli trial to draft everybody against Iran, to make it almost impossible for our allies in the Middle East to stand with us against Iran is the wrong idea.”
Lapid tied the cabinet decision to immediate diplomatic fallout. “I’m referring you to the comments that were released today by the Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudis, Emirates, and everyone else on the matter,” he said, calling the cabinet’s approval “just a destructive move in such a critical moment.”
Coalition lawmakers, by contrast, have framed the decision as a legal correction rather than a political escalation. Likud Member of Knesset (MK) Amit Halevi, a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said the changes are meant to align legal standards across territories under Israeli administration.
These cabinet decisions … do justice. … There should be one law, whether it’s what is called the land registry in Ramat Gan or in Givat Shmuel, or on another hill in Judea and Samaria.
“These cabinet decisions … do justice, in the sense that these regions, these parts of the homeland, Judea and Samaria, are part of the Israeli homeland,” Halevi told The Media Line. “Therefore, there should be one law, whether it’s what is called the land registry in Ramat Gan or in Givat Shmuel, or on another hill in Judea and Samaria.”
Halevi also argued that the existing legal framework was historically discriminatory. “Everything was ultimately directed, under Ottoman, Jordanian, and British law, to prevent Jews from purchasing land,” he said. “All these decisions are important decisions that both do justice and will practically enable the State of Israel to expand its hold in these territories, which are not only our history; they are our future.”
Religious Zionism MK Ohad Tal, chair of the Public Enterprises Committee and a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, described the reform as part of a broader shift in policy.
“What has been happening over the past three years under Bezalel Smotrich is a huge revolution in everything related to Israel’s policy toward Judea and Samaria, a de facto Israeli sovereignty decision,” Tal told The Media Line.
Tal pointed to jurisdiction and enforcement as the core issue. “It is unbelievable that in the State of Israel, there is an entire territory where Israeli law does not apply, but rather Jordanian law that discriminates against Jews and does not allow the sale of land to Jews.”
He also made a broader claim about Areas A and B. “All the issues of civil enforcement in Areas A and B, which until today were in the hands of the Palestinian Authority, we are taking from their hands and returning to Israeli control and civil enforcement also in Areas A and B,” he added.
Tal’s reference to “civil enforcement” is politically sensitive—and still vague—because the phrase can mean anything from routine planning violations and environmental regulation to broader administrative policing powers. In Areas A and B, where jurisdiction is governed by layered Oslo-era arrangements, even a narrow shift in enforcement authority can be read by critics as a precedent for deeper control, while supporters may insist it is limited to specific technical domains.
From Israel’s Arab political leadership and Palestinian representatives, the same administrative steps are framed as violations of existing agreements and international law. MK Ahmad Tibi, leader of the Ta’al party, said the decision breaches the interim framework.
This decision essentially constitutes advice toward annexation of the occupation in the occupied territories
“This decision essentially constitutes advice toward annexation of the occupation in the occupied territories,” Tibi told The Media Line. “It is a violation of all bilateral agreements, and above all, a blatant violation of international law.”
Tibi urged outside pressure, directing his appeal toward international institutions and governments. “I call on the UN and on all European Union countries to present a firm position against this rampage of the Israeli government,” he declared. “President Trump committed that there would be no annexation. In the meantime, the Israeli government is whistling at President Trump.”
Former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, head of the Yisrael Beitenu party, offered a brief endorsement without elaboration, replying that he “agrees with this move.”
Another strand of Israeli polling captures the same split. The Israel Democracy Institute’s October 2025 Israeli Voice Index survey found 35% supporting unilateral annexation, 33% preferring a diplomatic agreement with the Palestinians, and 18% favoring the status quo.
Palestinian officials describe the cabinet measures as a shift with long-term territorial consequences. Osama Qawasma, the official spokesperson and a member of the Revolutionary Council of the Fatah movement and the PLO Council, said the decisions reshape the West Bank’s administrative structure.
They become a mechanism of direct annexation without openly declaring it
“The Israeli cabinet’s decisions issued … are extremely dangerous and fundamentally alter the legal and administrative status of the West Bank,” Qawasma told The Media Line. “They become a mechanism of direct annexation without openly declaring it.”
Qawasma said the changes would expand Israel’s practical authority over property and construction. “These decisions unlawfully allow Israel to act upon Palestinian properties—demolishing, granting building permits, confiscating. The goal of these measures is to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state in the medium and long term.”
He emphasized the diplomatic track. “The Palestinian Authority is taking steps at the international level, coordinating with our Arab brothers and reaching out to the world to pressure Israel to halt these unlawful measures.” He called on international actors, including President Trump and the European Union, “to adopt a clear stance … to stop these decisions.”
Policy analyst Hani Almasri, director general of Masarat, the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies, argued the measures are designed to dismantle the existing governing framework. “The decisions aim to change the civil and legal foundations of the situation in the West Bank, to end what remains of Oslo, and to proceed with de facto total annexation.”
Almasri described what he sees as the intended territorial outcome. “They are moving toward formal annexation of the largest possible area while concentrating Palestinians into separated enclaves,” he said, adding that this “would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and Palestinians won’t be granted Israeli citizenship,” and that their status would instead be tied either to Jordan or to a framework based on the UAE’s proposal.
In his view, that would mean “dissolving totally the PA or maintaining shortly this authority by linking the West Bank enclaves with the Gaza ones into an entity that may later be allowed to be called a Palestinian state,” while ensuring that “this won’t translate in either case into national interest or real representation for the Palestinians.”
Overall, the polling and political messaging suggest leaders are not trying to outrun public opinion. In Israel, most recent public opinion surveys show majority opposition to a Palestinian state—especially among Jewish respondents—while support for sovereignty proposals still varies widely depending on question wording and political camp. Among Palestinians, the prevailing trend in polling remains rejection of formalizing Israeli sovereign arrangements.
In Israel, the decision is being debated as an internal governance overhaul with major political consequences, while the regional and international pushback is treated as background noise—right up until it isn’t, when the next diplomatic meeting or legal challenge forces the machinery back into view.
Steven Ganot contributed to this report.
