At the end of July, the Trump administration claimed that Hamas had accepted a roadmap toward disarming. It looks highly unlikely that either Israel or Hamas will deliver on the alleged terms. The apparent flexibility shown by Hamas is likely a delaying tactic to ensure its long-term political survival, since the organization’s officials have already made it clear that it will not give up its arms before every soldier from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has left the Gaza Strip.

The so-called Gaza roadmap has little chance in succeeding because of a classic catch-22: Israel will not withdraw fully from Gaza if Hamas does not disarm, and Hamas will not disarm if Israel does not withdraw. Thus, it came as little surprise when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently rejected Trump’s Gaza peace plan. Concessions to Hamas would go down badly among right-wing voters in Israel ahead of the country’s upcoming election in October. As the endless stream of supposed “deals” with Iran demonstrates, the world has grown accustomed to U.S. President Donald Trump making grand announcements that have little basis in reality.

This doesn’t mean that the Trump administration is wrong to try and resolve the conflict in Gaza. However, the larger problem lies elsewhere: While Washington is trying to shoot for the moon in Gaza, it is ignoring an explosive crisis brewing in the West Bank that is within its power to rein in. The West Bank violence is fueled in part by the White House’s own policy choices. By revoking the Biden administration’s sanctions on violent settler groups and failing to restrain its ally, the Trump administration bears much of the blame for emboldening Israeli settler extremists.

Paradoxically, traditional Palestinian terror threats in the West Bank have fallen significantly. In an assessment released in January, the IDF reported that Palestinian-caused incidents of terrorism in the West Bank had fallen by 78 percent. Yet the risk of a full-scale outbreak of Palestinian violence is severe. What’s more, a flare-up would serve the Netanyahu government’s interests ahead of the October elections, as it would unite its far-right base and foment division among Israel’s opposition.

The IDF and Israeli intelligence service Shin Bet have long warned that an explosion in the West Bank is coming, and recent developments demonstrate how combustible the situation has become. This time around, however, it is not militant Palestinian groups but the Israeli government that is deliberately fanning the flames. Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds ministerial responsibilities in the Defense Ministry, has exploited these powers to transform policy on Jewish settlements in the West Bank. At least 104 settlements have been legalized since the current Netanyahu government came to power in 2022.

Smotrich’s explicit goal has been to eliminate the possibility of a Palestinian state, and he does not hide his aspiration to annex the West Bank. The profusion of outposts and farms adjacent to Palestinian villages has created constant friction between Israelis and Palestinians. Gangs of settlers regularly attack Palestinian villages, damaging property and destroying livestock. Although settlers desecrating mosques in the West Bank is not new, such attacks (including firebombing) have increased in frequency since Hamas’s massacre on Oct. 7, 2023. Speaking to Kan News in June, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called it an organized campaign of “ethnic cleansing” and “pogroms” against Palestinians carried out by settlers, often with the active support of IDF units and police forces. According to the United Nations, 18 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed in attacks involving settlers so far in 2026.

Netanyahu has claimed that the violence is caused by a tiny minority of delinquents. In reality, the violence is spreading and orchestrated by fanatics who have the broad support of the Israeli government. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has indulged the most violent settlers. Historically, successive governments applied administrative detention orders against violent Israeli settlers who posed a clear threat to public safety. Upon taking office, Katz canceled those orders to curry favor with his right-wing base. The attacks on Palestinians sit well with government ministers, such as Smotrich, who do not hide their desire to see Palestinians leave the West Bank altogether.

Numerous Israelis who have visited the West Bank to show solidarity with Palestinians and protect them have themselves been subjected to brutal settler attacks. The violence is pervasive, and it is also taking place within Israel itself. In one particularly shocking case, an older Israeli activist was hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage after being assaulted for removing a sign that called for the release of Yigal Amir, who is serving a life sentence for assassinating former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The assailants have yet to be apprehended.

Even the head of IDF Central Command, Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, himself a religious settler, felt compelled to appeal to Israel’s courts to stop the release of an Israeli suspect accused of severe abuse against Palestinians. That Bluth felt a line had been crossed illustrates how settler violence has spiraled out of control. For Katz, Bluth’s intervention was seen as a challenge to his authority, culminating in Katz announcing live on television that he would be ousting the Central Command chief. Katz had earlier taken the extraordinary step of visiting the detained suspect in his jail cell before ordering security forces to end his administrative restraining order. Following pushback from the IDF and public criticism from both the left and right, Katz was later forced to backtrack.

Simultaneously, Israel has once again withheld payments of tax revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority (PA), this time with a clear objective of bringing about the PA’s financial collapse. As Michael Milshtein, the head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University, warned on the Israel Policy Forum’s podcast, efforts to weaken the PA carry grave dangers. For one, there is a heightened risk of clashes between the IDF and PA security forces. Amid growing attacks on Palestinians, PA security forces may calculate that they can no longer stand aside, dramatically increasing the risk of armed conflict between the IDF and PA forces.

The Trump administration has a better chance of exerting decisive influence over policy in the West Bank than in Gaza. Trump holds real leverage over Netanyahu, who can ill afford a public collision with Washington. Reimposing sanctions on settler extremists would send an unmistakable signal to Israel.

U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance has become increasingly impatient with the Israeli government and recently asserted: “They’re proposing an endless conflict. They want this to go on until every bomb has dropped or until every Iranian is dead.” The question is whether Washington has the stomach to take matters further. Ultimately, it is Netanyahu who has far more to lose. His domestic political standing relies heavily on his claimed unique chemistry with a U.S. president who remains popular in Israel. The joint U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran has proved to be an embarrassing fiasco, and there is little to stop a vindictive Trump from making Netanyahu his scapegoat. If that relationship falls apart, it would be politically devastating for the latter.

If the West Bank erupts, any current or future Gaza roadmap will be fully dead in the water. Netanyahu may calculate that defying Washington is clever domestic politics ahead of the upcoming election. But jeopardizing relations with the United States carries severe risks with the wider Israeli public. If Trump really wants to be seen as a peacemaker, then he must begin to use his leverage. And that starts with stabilizing the situation in the West Bank and building from there.