As Israel’s large-scale military occupation of West Bank cities continues, following weeks of increased violence by settlers against Palestinians in West Bank villages, neither President Joe Biden’s administration nor Kamala Harris’s campaign has clearly condemned the Israeli aggression.

On Wednesday, neither the White House nor the State Department held their usual daily press conference, nor did any senior US official tweet about the occupation operations in the West Bank cities on the “X” platform, as is also customary in such cases.

At least 662 people have been killed in West Bank cities since October 7, 2023, at a time when the occupation announced its intention to begin an ethnic cleansing operation and evacuate the Palestinian population in some West Bank cities, similar to the methods used in the Gaza Strip.

“Israel is likely to continue attacking the Palestinians to defeat perceived security threats, amid a climate of growing fear and anxiety about international political isolation and regional threats that appear to be escalating,” said Charles Dunn, a former White House and State Department official, an expert at the Arab Institute in Washington, and a lecturer at George Washington University. “There is a strong current within the Israeli government that wants to get rid of the Palestinians once and for all, and the unstable Netanyahu government will push that to the limit,” Dunn said.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu is still relying on his far-right coalition partners who are trying to achieve de facto annexation of the West Bank,” said Ambassador David Mack, a former US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs who previously served at the US consulate in Jerusalem. “In addition, he has some reason to believe that there are Palestinians planning to launch attacks from places like Jenin and Tulkarm.”

On the other hand, Professor Osama Khalil, head of the International Relations Program at Syracuse University in upstate New York, considered that “Israel’s attacks inside the occupied West Bank are part of its larger project of annexing, displacing and erasing the Palestinians.”

The past three years have witnessed the largest acts of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem by settlers and the occupation army, and were the largest in the last two decades.

After October 7, this violence was obscured by the much greater destruction the occupation caused in the Gaza Strip, according to the same spokesman, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the US presidential campaign and strong diplomatic, political and military support from Washington to divert attention from his policies and goals while securing support from both parties.

American silence 
Regarding the Biden administration and Harris campaign's position on Israeli attacks, Dan said, "I don't expect any major changes in this election year, which is deeply divided over what the White House is willing to do or not do."

The main goal, he added, is a ceasefire with a very limited vision of what happens after that. Much of that will be left to Harris, who has taken a rhetorical stance that appeals to many Democratic voters but does not in itself constitute a new or different policy.

While Ambassador Mack considered it important for the Biden-Harris administration to mobilize more support from our Arab partners to pressure Hamas and replace Mahmoud Abbas with a younger, more effective leader of the Palestinian Authority.

At the same time, Biden needs to accept the views of those in his administration and the broader Democratic Party to use the leverage he has to exert real pressure on the occupation to transition from Netanyahu to a new leader whose views are more realistic and based on the occupation’s long-term strategic interest in protecting its sovereignty over the pre-June 1967 borders, in addition to some minor concessions regarding the borders of a future Palestinian state, according to Mack.

“An exemplary position by Biden could protect his legacy in the history books, and pave the way for a future US government to defend Israel’s right to exist without harming US relations with most Palestinians and most, if not all, Arab states,” Mack said.

Professor Khalil expects the violence to continue and expand until mid-fall, as the November elections approach. Neither the Biden administration nor the Harris campaign will criticize the occupation’s actions for fear of alienating donors and voters who support the occupation. The administration will also not restrict arms sales.

Instead, he believes, the Biden administration will express a lukewarm rejection of civilian casualties, while applying sanctions on some settlers who deliberately ignore the central role of the occupying state in the settlement enterprise and policies of seizing more land.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump, according to Khalil, will try to portray Vice President Harris and President Biden as insufficiently supportive of the occupation in his quest to bolster his standing among pro-occupation voters and appease his major campaign donors.

Non-deterrent penalties 
The Biden administration issued a sixth set of sanctions targeting settler violence in the West Bank, imposing sanctions on a group that secures illegal settlement outposts and a civilian security guard accused of attacking Palestinians.

The US sanctions against Hashomer Yosh (Guardians of Judea and Samaria) and Yitzhak Levi-Villant come in the wake of two recent settler attacks in Palestinian towns near the city of Bethlehem that killed two Palestinians. No one has been arrested in connection with the attacks, which are part of a broader trend of impunity for such violence.

The US sanctions come amid concerns that Netanyahu's government is not taking enough action against settler violence.