[News] Israel is ready to annex the West Bank, but why now?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Israel is ready to annex the West Bank, but why now?
By Ramzy Baroud <https://english.palinfo.com/?p=250012>

Tuesday 17-December-2024 -
https://english.palinfo.com/opinion_articles/israel-is-ready-to-annex-the-west-bank-but-why-now/

Israel is getting ready to annex the occupied Palestinian West Bank. The
annexation will be a major step backwards on the road to Palestinian
freedom and will likely serve as a catalyst for a new Palestinian uprising.
Although annexation has been on the Israeli agenda for years, this time
around a “great opportunity” — in the words of extreme far-right Finance
Minister Bezalel Smotrich — has presented itself and, from an Israeli point
of view, cannot be missed.

“I hope we’ll have a great opportunity with the new US administration to
create full normalization [of the Israeli occupation],” he was quoted as
saying by Israeli media. This is not the first time that Smotrich, along
with other Israeli extremists, has made the connection between Donald Trump
moving back into the White House and the illegal expansion of Israel’s
nominal borders.

Two things make Israel’s far-right optimistic about Trump’s return to the
Oval Office: the Israeli experience during Trump’s first term in office,
when the US president allowed the occupation state to claim sovereignty
over illegal settlements, the Syrian Golan Heights and occupied East
Jerusalem; and Trump’s more recent statement in the run-up to the elections.

Israel is “so tiny” on the map, said Trump when addressing the pro-Israel
group Stop Anti-Semitism at an event in August, asking aloud: “Is there any
way of getting more?” The statement, absurd by any definition, prompted joy
among Israeli politicians, who understood it to be a green light for
further annexation of Palestinian land.

Israel’s aims for colonial expansion have also received a boost in more
recent days.

Following the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in Syria, Israel immediately
invaded large swathes of the country, reaching as far as the Quneitra
governorate, less than 20 kilometers from the capital, Damascus. What is
taking place in Syria serves as a model of what to expect in the West Bank
in coming months.

Israel occupied nearly 70 per cent of the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967. It
cemented its illegal occupation of the Arab region by formally annexing it
in 1981 through the so-called Golan Heights Law. That illegal move came
shortly after another illegal annexation, that of occupied Palestinian East
Jerusalem the previous year.

Although the West Bank was not formally annexed, the boundaries of East
Jerusalem have been expanded well beyond its historic borders, thus
swallowing large parts of the West Bank. Like East Jerusalem and the Golan
Heights, the West Bank is also recognized as illegally occupied under
international law. Israel has no legal basis to maintain its occupation,
let alone annex any Palestinian or Arab land. It is allowed to do so,
however, due to US-Western support and international silence.

But why is Israel keen on annexing the West Bank now?

Aside from the “great opportunity” linked to Trump’s return to power,
Israel feels that its ability to sustain a genocidal war on Gaza without
any international intervention to bring the extermination to an end, would
make the annexation of the West Bank a far less consequential matter on the
international agenda.

Even though the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a decisive
ruling on the illegality of the Israeli occupation on 19 July, followed by
the issuance of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant by
the International Criminal Court (ICC) on 21 November, no action was taken
to actually hold Israel accountable. The annexation of the West Bank is
unlikely to change that, especially as Israel conducts its wars and illegal
actions with direct US support.

The Democratic administration of Joe Biden has financed and supported all
Israeli wars, including the current genocide. Trump is expected to be
equally generous, or at the very least, not at all critical.

With all of this in mind, the annexation of the West Bank in the coming
weeks or months is a real possibility. In fact, Smotrich has already
informed “workers of the Defense Ministry body in charge of Israeli and
Palestinian civil affairs in the West Bank” about his plans to “shut down
the department as part of an envisioned Israeli annexation of the area,”
the Times of Israel reported on 6 December.

While such annexation will not change the legal status of the West Bank
under international law, it will have dire consequences for the millions of
Palestinians living there, as annexation is likely to be followed by a
violent campaign of ethnic cleansing, if not from the whole of the West
Bank, certainly from large parts of it.

Annexation will also render the Palestinian Authority legally irrelevant.

It was created following the Oslo Accords to administer parts of the West
Bank in anticipation of a future sovereign state, which has never
materialized. Will the PA agree to remain functional as part of the Israeli
military administration of a newly annexed West Bank?

Palestinians will certainly resist, as they always do. The nature of the
resistance will prove critical in the success or failure of the Israeli
scheme. A popular Intifada, for example, will overstretch the Israeli
military, which will likely use an unprecedented degree of violence to
suppress Palestinians, but is unlikely to succeed.

Annexing the West Bank at a time when Palestine — in fact, the whole region
— is in turmoil, is a recipe for perpetual war. From the viewpoint of
Smotrich and his ilk, that will be another “great opportunity”, as it will
secure their political survival for years to come.

*-Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle.
He is the author of five books. His latest is ‘These Chains Will Be Broken:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’. Baroud is
a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global
Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC).*
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