[News] Annexation is not just about stealing land — it's about expelling Palestinians

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.972mag.com/israel-settler-colonial-annexation/?fbclid=IwAR2g9tGExCc04qlHFPXVyLy3JtgxxYHkTzRWPFjfR_0UQ0sN-5vkuUOUbKk
Annexation
is not just about stealing land — it's about expelling Palestinians
By Ahmad Al-Bazz  -  May 19, 2020
------------------------------

To many readers of mainstream news sites in recent weeks, it may seem as if
Israel is preparing to implement a drastic plan to annex the occupied West
Bank, following the new Israeli government’s coalition agreement
<https://www.972mag.com/netanyahu-coalition-annexation-gantz/> and the
United States’ so-called “Deal of the Century
<https://www.972mag.com/diana-buttu-podcast-deal-of-the-century/>.”

But Palestinians know full well that there is nothing dramatic about
Israeli annexation. If anything, they are angered that the international
community is acting so surprised
<https://www.972mag.com/germany-israel-annexation-icc/> at the move.

To understand the gap between the media headlines and the facts on the
ground, put yourself in the shoes of an ordinary Israeli citizen who
decides to take a trip from their apartment in Tel Aviv to the Dead Sea,
much of which lies within the occupied West Bank.

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All that citizen needs to do is take a single highway eastward, and in less
than an hour and a half, they have arrived near the bank of the Jordan
River. There are no checkpoints and no route changes on that short journey
— no indicator that one has entered the West Bank. Hebrew-language road
signs extend along the entire route, Israeli police enforce traffic laws
throughout, and the Israeli National Parks Authority welcomes visitors to
its nearby sites.

The Israeli driver will be careful not to mistakenly enter the areas where
Palestinian residents of the West Bank live. This is not difficult, since
in the wake of the Oslo Accords the army put up large red signs at the
entrances of Palestinian towns warning Israelis that entering those areas
was “dangerous.” A Palestinian on the other side of those signs, of course,
can neither take the road back into Israel nor visit the same Dead Sea
resorts as the Israeli driver.

[image: The entrance of the Palestinian village of Dier 'Ammar as it
appears from Israeli highway No. 463, West Bank. January 18, 2019. (Ahmad
Al-Bazz / Activestills)]
<https://static.972mag.com/www/uploads/2020/05/AS_WB_Signs-e1589879674314.jpg>

The entrance of the Palestinian village of Dier ‘Ammar as it appears from
Israeli highway No. 463, West Bank. January 18, 2019. (Ahmad Al-Bazz /
Activestills)

Despite the land’s seemingly complex political structures, the physical map
<https://www.972mag.com/israel-green-line-settlements/> of Palestine-Israel
in 2020 is actually very simple: even with a few, semi-autonomous
Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, everything from north
to south, east to west, is ruled by Israel
<https://www.972mag.com/one-state-annexation-decade/>.

This reality has existed for decades. And yet the world is somehow alarmed
by the fact that Israel now wants to make this reality “official”
through formal
annexation <https://www.972mag.com/palestinian-land-west-bank-annexation/>.
What the international community views as an illegal move by a military
occupier, or as a territorial dispute over borders between two governments,
Palestinians understand as another stage in Israel’s century-long settler
colonial project.
*The demographic ‘mistake’*

Exclusion and control, which have always been essential features
<https://www.972mag.com/anti-zionism-historical-wrongs/> of Zionism, are
the building blocks of the land’s geography. The goal of creating a
Jewish-only country in which other people reside has caused an endless
reality of oppression for Palestinians. Zionism gave Palestinians two
choices: expulsion and exile
<https://www.972mag.com/tarek-bakri-return-podcast/>, or Israeli rule
without rights. All Palestinians, no matter where they are in the world,
are subjected to either of those fates.

After the state’s establishment in 1948, many Israelis were disappointed
that they did not capture cities such as Hebron, Nablus, and Jerusalem’s
Old City, which are considered holy Jewish sites, as part of the newly
established state. That hope was eventually fulfilled in 1967, when Israel
took control of the entirety of Mandatory Palestine. But apart from East
Jerusalem, the state never annexed those territories under Israeli law.

To this day, Israel has been eager to avoid repeating the demographic
mistake
<https://www.972mag.com/when-will-israel-stop-seeing-palestinians-as-a-demographic-threat/>
it made by granting some Palestinians Israeli citizenship in 1948. Placed
under military rule until 1966 and discriminated against ever since, the very
existence <https://www.972mag.com/right-wing-fear-palestinian-citizens/> of
Palestinian citizens has thwarted Israel’s plans to create a purely Jewish
state. As such, Palestinians in Israel are constantly reminded
<https://www.972mag.com/arabs-bibi-ethnic-violence/> that they are
unwanted: Netanyahu said clearly last year that “Israel is not a state for
all its citizens,” and even the Deal of the Century proposed transferring
their communities to a future Palestinian entity.

[image: Residents of the ‘unrecognized’ village of Al-Araqib hold
Activestills photos documenting their struggle during a protest against the
demolition of their homes, 2010. Israeli authorities have since demolished
the village over 100 times. (Activestills.org)]
<https://static.972mag.com/www/uploads/2017/01/Araqib-photos.jpg>

Residents of the ‘unrecognized’ village of Al-Araqib hold Activestills
photos documenting their struggle during a protest against the demolition
of their homes, 2010. Israeli authorities have since demolished the village
over 100 times. (Activestills.org)

Haunted by its mistake, Israel decided to pursue a policy of “permanent
temporariness” in the West Bank and Gaza: de facto annexation, rather than
de jure, would be their escape. It created new categories
<https://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/identity-crisis-the-israeli-id-system>
for the unwanted population: red “permanent residencies” for East
Jerusalemites (thousands of which have been revoked since 1967), and orange
or green ID cards for those in Gaza and the West Bank, administered by the
Israeli Defense Ministry.

The state simultaneously encouraged its Jewish population to settle in the
occupied territories. As the settlements blossomed, Israel built
<https://www.972mag.com/kedumim-settlement-kufr-qaddum/> bypass roads,
walls, and fences to ensure not only that the settlements remained
connected to each other and to Israel, but served as a tool to control and
limit the movement of the Palestinian population.

So why, after more than fifty years of this “permanent temporariness,” is
Israel deciding to make this reality official? And what should the response
from Palestinians be?
*The Palestinian response*

The answer lies in what Israel may be preparing to announce: not only the
absorption of the settlements and surrounding land, which are already under
its control, but also the final cleansing of the Palestinians who remain in
those areas. That plan has been unfolding for years
<https://www.972mag.com/hundreds-of-palestinians-on-the-brink-of-expulsion-we-just-want-to-live/>
in places like the Jordan Valley, E1, and the South Hebron Hills, but it
could be pursued more swiftly once formal annexation is declared.

Given the impunity with which Israel has violated international law in the
occupied territories, there is no better opportunity for Palestinians to
finally abandon the legalistic discourse
<https://al-shabaka.org/circles/reclaiming-the-political-narrative-in-palestinian-politics/>
of “occupation.” Palestinians have long given this international framework
a chance to aid their struggle
<https://www.972mag.com/palestinian-experts-icc-justice/>, despite all its
limitation and misrepresentations of their cause — but to no avail.

[image: A section of the Israeli separation wall that annexes lands of
Bethlehem and Jerusalem districts, Beit Jala, West Bank. April 6, 2019.
(Anne Paq/Activestills )]
<https://static.972mag.com/www/uploads/2020/05/AS_WB_Wall-e1589879777813.jpg>

A section of the Israeli separation wall that annexes lands of Bethlehem
and Jerusalem districts, Beit Jala, West Bank. April 6, 2019. (Anne
Paq/Activestills )

Palestinian leaders have been part of this failure. Until the late 1980s,
the Palestinian national leadership viewed Israel as a settler colony that
was usurping Palestinian land, demanding the return of refugees, and
calling for a single democratic state
<https://www.972mag.com/bassem-tamimi-one-state/> for all. But since then,
the Palestine Liberation Organization has formally recognized Israel and
adopted the two-state solution, in great part to satisfy the international
community’s perspective, which operates on the false premise of a
“conflict” between two equal sides.

This framework replaced the Palestinian demand for decolonization of
Mandatory Palestine, and accepted the Green Line as the border within which
to cage Palestinians in a quasi-state. Nearly 30 years after
<https://www.972mag.com/blind-spot-us-palestine-israel-peace/> the Oslo
Accords, Israel’s settler-colonial policies continue to treat Palestinians
as the same, unwanted, colonized group — whether they are citizens of
Israel, occupied subjects, or expelled refugees.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas claims to recognize this fact by
repeatedly threatening to dismantle the Palestinian Authority or to
withdraw from so-called security agreements with Israel. But Abbas has
never been brave enough to follow through
<https://www.972mag.com/palestinians-deserve-more-than-mahmoud-abbas/>. If
the PA does nothing to correct its mistakes, it will simply maintain
Israel’s plans to have the Palestinian leadership run the shrunken enclaves
on the state’s behalf.

Thus, as Israel polishes the next phase of its settler colonial project, it
is time for Palestinians to return to their original demands of full
decolonization <https://www.972mag.com/decolonization-palestine-one-state/>
and one democratic state where all human beings have equal rights on this
land, and to develop new strategies to achieve that goal. Until then, the
international community has no right to express regret about upcoming
annexation. It is simply the fruit of Israel’s colonial labors, which the
international community itself never took action
<https://www.972mag.com/the-world-had-decades-to-stop-annexation-just-ask-palestinians/>
to stop.

___________________

Ahmad Al-Bazz is a journalist and documentary filmmaker based in the West
Bank city of Nablus. He has been a member of the Activestills photography
collective since 2012.
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