For now, the public debate surrounding Israel’s April 2019 election is focusing on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal cases. The Israeli media as well as politicians from the coalition and opposition have been spending quite a bit of time on the question of when it would be appropriate for Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to release his decision on whether to indict Netanyahu. Should he do it now, or wait until the election is over? Can Netanyahu serve as prime minister if he is indicted? But the question that will really determine Israel’s fate is whether Israel should annex the territories, and that issue is being pushed off to the side.

During the Netanyahu government’s last term, the leaders of HaBayit HaYehudi made no secret of what they considered to be an appropriate diplomatic solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. It involved the annexation of Area C, which was home to 413,000 Jews as of last year and about 300,000 Palestinians. In fact, the party’s chairman, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, had submitted his own annexation plan in 2012. Back then, he sounded delusional. Adopting the idea meant abandoning a diplomatic solution with the Palestinians and replacing it with the idea of a binational state. The issues never received public support or even came up for public debate. But now, during Netanyahu’s fourth term, Israelis are desperate. It may be Netanyahu’s fault, but they have given up on reaching a diplomatic solution with a “non-partner” like Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. As such, the right’s annexation plan has taken the lead over a two-state solution.

Netanyahu is fully aware of how volatile the idea of annexation is and takes care not to explicitly or publicly support it. Nevertheless, words are one thing and actions are another. The fact is that he has taken steps to advance a policy of annexation. Outwardly, in diplomatic meetings with world leaders, Netanyahu continues to say that he supports a two-state solution. He even says it to his good friend in the White House, President Donald Trump. And in a speech to the Knesset in 2016, Netanyahu spoke out clearly against annexation: “My worldview hasn’t changed. I am not interested in a binational state. I do not want to turn a million and a half Palestinians into Israeli citizens.”

On the other hand, Netanyahu has taken steps to kill any possibility of a two-state solution, particularly during his last two terms. He scared the Israeli public into believing that the West Bank would become a terror base. He claimed that Abbas has been inciting people to engage in terrorism and is not a real partner, even though senior defense officials believe that he is a partner for dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians on matters of defense. These officials rely on steady security coordination with the Palestinian Authority and the joint war against terror.