That could have been the surprise in TLJ; it was the reason Luke has been in exile - he sensed Palps was behind what was going on and was looking to track down his location. Wait…is that the explanation Force Ghost Luke gives towards the end of ROS? I forget.
Nope: he says “It was fear that brought me here,” whatever that means. Your idea is a lot better though.
I actually came up with a similar idea a year or two ago, but I didn’t want Luke to explicitly know that Palpatine was behind it all: Luke would sense that a powerful dark energy was behind Ben’s turn and the rise of the First Order, but he would have no idea what that energy came from. At the end of TLJ, Kylo would be called to the Unknown Regions by that mysterious dark energy, which would turn out to be coming from Palpatine in a cliffhanger ending.