Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing HaBayit HaYehudi, continues to advance a proposal for the annexation of parts of the West Bank. Bennett, it seems, is not pinning his hopes on the current president of the United States or any other conservative figure to fulfill his pro-settler vision. He is not betting that Sheldon Adelson, the right-wing Jewish American gambling tycoon, will suggest to his good friend Donald Trump that he forget about the “ultimate deal” he promised to make between Israelis and Palestinians.

Bennett is also not counting on the claim that God gave the Jews the Land of Israel, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. In addition, unlike his settler friends who adopted at face value that “our future lies not in what the Gentiles will say, but in what the Jews will do” — a famous saying by Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion — Bennett takes seriously both the Gentiles and homegrown Israeli left-wingers. In fact, Bennett is taking what he estimates to be a pragmatic approach.

The HaBayit HaYehudi leader has been fully aware of claims over the years by Palestinians, human rights groups, Israeli left-wingers and the international community about Israel’s apartheid-like policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians under Israeli occupation and military rule. Bennett wants to sideline such criticism while also promoting the settlement enterprise. In order to do that, he argues, “pulling the rug out from under the claim” that Israel practices apartheid requires a blueprint allowing Israel to deepen its settlement in the territories while at the same time ensuring equal rights for the Palestinians living there. In addition, the plan must avoid a demographic shift detrimental to the Jews.

Obviously, these goals cannot be achieved across the entire West Bank, where 2.5 million Palestinians live. Israel annexing all of the West Bank would create a bi-national state in which Jews would not be the majority. To get around this, Bennett has turned to the Oslo Accords, much reviled by the right-wing settler camp, and has decided that he can “make do” with annexing Area C, over which Israel has full civil and security control.