The Lawfare Podcast · The Lawfare Institute

Lawfare Daily: Joel Braunold on West Bank Violence and Israel’s New Lebanon Offensive

April 1, 2026·50 min·4 clips

Palestinian civilians have been killed at 20 times the rate of Israeli civilians in the West Bank since 2023.

Scott Anderson and Joel Braunold open by noting that while Iran has dominated headlines, significant developments in the West Bank have gone largely unreported. Braunold presents UN casualty figures: since 2008, Israelis have killed 2,076 Palestinians in the West Bank versus 378 Israelis killed by Palestinians, with 840 Palestinian civilians killed since 2023 alone, twenty times the number of Israeli civilians. Braunold describes how coalition members Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have pursued a strategy of collapsing the Palestinian Authority since October 7th, viewing it as a historic opportunity to end the concept of Palestinian nationalism. This has manifested through financial restrictions on customs revenues and the unleashing of settler violence by so-called hilltop youth, estimated at 200 to 400 individuals who are armed, given ATVs by government ministries, and sent to terrorize Palestinian and Bedouin communities off their land. A CNN report by Jeremy Diamond documented an IDF battalion beating one of his journalists and expressing support for the settler violence on camera, undermining claims that the violence comes from a fringe minority. Ben-Gvir backed the battalion fighters against CNN, and the Knesset Foreign and Defense Committee chairman criticized the IDF chief of staff for disciplining them. The violence reached a crisis point prompting Netanyahu to issue an internal memo banning new outposts in Area B and proposing fiscal sanctions on settlement communities. The IDF chief of staff presented ten red flags to the cabinet, with three directly related to illegal outpost establishment. However, Braunold questions whether enforcement will follow given that the police minister actively supports the rioters. The Knesset passed a death penalty law 62 to 48 that mandates hanging for Palestinians convicted of murder in military courts. The law requires execution within 90 days, shorter than the Geneva Convention requires, needs only a majority rather than unanimous judicial decision, allows no appeal, and does not require doctor participation. Military court conviction rates are approximately 96 percent. The law applies to Israeli citizens only if the crime was committed to deny the existence of the Jewish state, language widely interpreted as exempting Jewish extremist violence. Netanyahu personally voted for the legislation. Most legal commentators expect the Supreme Court to strike it down. On Lebanon, Braunold explains that after the pager attack decimated Hezbollah leadership, Israel used a single rocket fired after the Iran war began as justification to breach the ceasefire and launch a ground maneuver toward the Litani River. Northern Israeli communities have become ghost towns under persistent rocket fire, with mayors crying on television demanding either total military victory or a peace deal. Four Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon during the recording. Braunold frames the central strategic question: Netanyahu's post-October 7th philosophy relies on pure military power projection to create regional security without diplomacy. If this approach fails to deliver peace, the entire operating philosophy will need to change. On Gaza, the ceasefire holds while negotiations continue in Cairo around a DDR proposal for Hamas to surrender weapons. Braunold argues the Palestinian issue remains the necessary off-ramp for the Iran war and the key to any Saudi normalization, regardless of the military situation with Iran. The episode concludes with discussion of how the PA's reform pledges and the question of Palestinian self-determination remain prerequisites for the regional reshaping the Trump administration seeks.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Lawfare Podcast