What If No One Is Any Longer Able to Intervene in the West Bank?
The Policy and Society Institute has issued a new situation assessment paper entitled:
“The Risk of Deteriorating Strategic Conditions in the West Bank: Intersections of Israeli Elections, Emerging Palestinian Leadership, and the Requirements of the Jordanian Response,”
prepared by Dr. Ali Hijazi, Director of the Research and Studies Department at the Institute.
The paper warns that the West Bank is undergoing a dangerous qualitative transformation, marked by a shift from a phase of escalation that was still containable to one of prolonged structural erosion. This transformation is no longer governed by the rhythm of cyclical crises or temporary security developments.
The paper advances an unconventional question in approaching the West Bank—not what Israel is doing, but rather what Jordan and the Arab states are no longer able to do. According to the analysis, the sustained escalation reveals that the West Bank is no longer an open arena of political conflict, but rather a reality being gradually decided on the ground, amid a tangible decline in the capacity of regional actors to exert influence.
According to the paper, the West Bank has moved from being a file open to pressure, initiatives, and political tracks to a precisely managed Israeli reality, met by a state of Arab retrenchment focused on managing outcomes rather than altering trajectories. Politics has receded, replaced by a logic of containment and prevention.
From a Jordanian perspective, the West Bank is no longer a political file in the traditional sense, but has instead become a silent contact front. Political instruments have withdrawn, giving way to security, economic, and demographic calculations—not as tools of influence, but as last lines of defense against more dangerous scenarios.
At the Arab level, the paper goes beyond merely describing the weakness of positions, arguing that the Palestinian cause has, in practice, exited the sphere of collective action and entered the realm of cost–benefit calculations. The absence of statements or political rhetoric is not the core problem; rather, it is the erosion of the ability to generate a joint Arab track capable of action and of bearing its political consequences.
In this context, the paper contends that speaking of a “strategic response” is no longer an accurate description of reality. The dilemma lies not in a lack of instruments, but in the absence of an actor capable of employing them and assuming their political costs.
The paper concludes that the trajectory of deterioration in the West Bank is no longer the product of situational factors or isolated security developments, but instead reflects a long-term structural transformation in the nature of the conflict and the mechanisms through which it is managed. This, it argues, necessitates a fundamental rethinking of approaches to dealing with the West Bank, both at the Jordanian and Arab levels.