With Israel’s fourth elections just days away, the settlers of the West Bank have become a much-courted sector during Israel's fourth elections in two years, thanks to two prevailing - and perhaps contradictory - assumptions by politicians.
The first assumption is that the votes of the settlers will give the right-wing bloc the 61 Knesset seats it needs to form a stable government. The second assumption is that the votes of the settlers will finally unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yesha leader David Elhayani visiting the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut
(Photo: GPO)
At any other time, the heads of the settler movement would use this sudden popularity to benefit both their settlements and their people, but these are not ordinary times.
Israel’s settlers always knew exactly what they wanted - to be recognized as part of Israel. And it seemed over the past few years that all of their wishes had come true.
No longer did they have to fear evacuation from their homes thanks to a law that retroactively legalized unauthorized settlements in the West Bank.
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Gaza settlers refusing to be evacuated during Israel's disengagement from the Strip in 2005
(Photo: Getty Images)
They even met with members of former president Donald Trump's administration in Washington to discuss Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and making the settlements an official part of the state.
It should be a time of unbridled prosperity for the West Bank settlements. Instead, their leadership finds itself in a state of utter chaos.
The Yesha Council of Settlers, the settlement movement's umbrella organization, is destitute. Its budget and activities are funded by its member municipalities. And since the support of the most prominent local councils has greatly declined in recent years, the money has stopped flowing and all activities ceased.
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Settler youths in Jerusalem demonstrate in favor of a law to retroactively legalize unauthorized settlements
(Photo: Gil Yohanan)
The Yesha Council was also involved in various convoluted power struggles involving its leadership, right-wing MKs and even Netanyahu. To put it bluntly, the council finds itself now practically powerless, divided and stagnant.
This of course benefits Netanyahu, who is using it to bring those he wants into the fold while alienating those he deems to be troublemakers.
During the first of two rounds of elections in 2019, Yesha leader David Elhayani - who was a staunch Likud supporter at the time - stood side by side with Netanyahu as he pledged that Israel would work to apply its sovereignty over West Bank territories and annex the Jordan Valley.
But the Trump-backed annexation came hand in hand with the creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank - turning several settlements into enclaves right in the middle of potentially hostile territory.
This prompted Elhayani to embark launch an ongoing criticism of both Trump and Netanyahu. The latter did not appreciate Elhayani's constant complaints and decided to cut all contact with him.
And now Elhayani, alongside other ostracized settler leaders, have chosen to break off from Netanyahu and his party and instead support former Likud MK Gideon Saar and his breakaway party New Hope.
A strong, unified Yesha Council could have reached an accord with the government and finally fixed the major issues facing the West Bank settlements, including frequent power outages, a poor sewage system and - of course - the lack of security.
But now on the eve of the elections, with a myriad of important issues on the line, the settler leadership is divided and the politicians understand this can be exploited to gain a few more precious seats.
And while right-wing politicians like Bezalel Smotrich, Naftali Bennett, Saar and Netanyahu are currently bending over backwards to woo the settlers, the overwhelming divisions among them mean that after the elections, all this potential power and influence will most likely dissipate among the infighting.