At a festive toast on Aug. 26 ahead of the Jewish New Year that starts next week, HaBayit HaYehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett told West Bank settlement leaders that he envisioned having 1 million settlers by the end of the coming Jewish year.

A comprehensive 2017 analysis by Haaretz newspaper, based on data of the Central Bureau of Statistics from 2015, puts the number of settlers in the West Bank at some 380,000. The figures are partial, according to the analysis, since they do not include Israeli Jews living in east Jerusalem, estimated to number some 210,000. Data compiled by the human rights group B'Tselem indicate that at the end of 2015, there were 127 settlements, excluding 15 Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and the Jewish settlement in Hebron, and another 100 smaller settlement outposts.

In other words, Bennett dreams of adding close to 250,000 Israelis to the settlers' ranks within the coming year. "We must continue the construction momentum in Judea and Samaria [biblical name of the West Bank]," an excited Bennett told the assembled settlers. "The residents of Judea and Samaria are building the land and realizing the Zionist dream."

Commanders for Israel's Security, a forum of retired generals and their Mossad, Shin Bet and police equivalents, was critical of Bennett's vision. "The settlement of 1 million Jews will eventually force the annexation of 2.6 million Palestinians. Annexing millions of Palestinians will result in the loss of Israel's Jewish majority, the end of the Zionist enterprise and a bitter and violent civil rights struggle," the group announced.