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<font size="1"><a href="https://www.972mag.com/israel-settler-colonial-annexation/?fbclid=IwAR2g9tGExCc04qlHFPXVyLy3JtgxxYHkTzRWPFjfR_0UQ0sN-5vkuUOUbKk">https://www.972mag.com/israel-settler-colonial-annexation/?fbclid=IwAR2g9tGExCc04qlHFPXVyLy3JtgxxYHkTzRWPFjfR_0UQ0sN-5vkuUOUbKk</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Annexation is not just about stealing land — it's about expelling Palestinians<br></h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Ahmad Al-Bazz - May 19, 2020</div>
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<p>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 <a href="https://www.972mag.com/netanyahu-coalition-annexation-gantz/">coalition agreement</a> and the United States’ so-called “<a href="https://www.972mag.com/diana-buttu-podcast-deal-of-the-century/">Deal of the Century</a>.”</p>
<p>But Palestinians know full well that there is nothing dramatic about
Israeli annexation. If anything, they are angered that the international
community is <a href="https://www.972mag.com/germany-israel-annexation-icc/">acting so surprised</a> at the move.</p>
<p>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.</p><div>
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<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_153664" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><a href="https://static.972mag.com/www/uploads/2020/05/AS_WB_Signs-e1589879674314.jpg"><img title="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)" src="https://static.972mag.com/www/uploads/2020/05/AS_WB_Signs-e1589879674314.jpg" alt="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)" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="452" height="301"></a></p><p>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)</p>
</div>
<p>Despite the land’s seemingly complex political structures, the <a href="https://www.972mag.com/israel-green-line-settlements/">physical map</a>
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 <a href="https://www.972mag.com/one-state-annexation-decade/">ruled by Israel</a>.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.972mag.com/palestinian-land-west-bank-annexation/">formal annexation</a>.
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.</p>
<h3><strong>The demographic ‘mistake’</strong></h3>
<p>Exclusion and control, which have always been <a href="https://www.972mag.com/anti-zionism-historical-wrongs/">essential features</a>
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: <a href="https://www.972mag.com/tarek-bakri-return-podcast/">expulsion and exile</a>,
or Israeli rule without rights. All Palestinians, no matter where they
are in the world, are subjected to either of those fates.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>To this day, Israel has been eager to avoid repeating the <a href="https://www.972mag.com/when-will-israel-stop-seeing-palestinians-as-a-demographic-threat/">demographic mistake</a>
it made by granting some Palestinians Israeli citizenship in 1948.
Placed under military rule until 1966 and discriminated against ever
since, the <a href="https://www.972mag.com/right-wing-fear-palestinian-citizens/">very existence</a> of Palestinian citizens has thwarted Israel’s plans to create a purely Jewish state. As such, Palestinians in Israel are <a href="https://www.972mag.com/arabs-bibi-ethnic-violence/">constantly reminded</a>
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.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_124139" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><a href="https://static.972mag.com/www/uploads/2017/01/Araqib-photos.jpg"><img title="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)" src="https://static.972mag.com/www/uploads/2017/01/Araqib-photos.jpg" alt="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)" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="452" height="301"></a></p><p>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)</p>
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<p>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 <a href="https://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/identity-crisis-the-israeli-id-system">new categories</a>
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.</p>
<p>The state simultaneously encouraged its Jewish population to settle in the occupied territories. As the settlements blossomed, <a href="https://www.972mag.com/kedumim-settlement-kufr-qaddum/">Israel built</a>
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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<h3><strong>The Palestinian response</strong></h3>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.972mag.com/hundreds-of-palestinians-on-the-brink-of-expulsion-we-just-want-to-live/">unfolding for years</a>
in places like the Jordan Valley, E1, and the South Hebron Hills, but
it could be pursued more swiftly once formal annexation is declared.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://al-shabaka.org/circles/reclaiming-the-political-narrative-in-palestinian-politics/">legalistic discourse</a> of “occupation.” Palestinians have long given this international framework a chance to <a href="https://www.972mag.com/palestinian-experts-icc-justice/">aid their struggle</a>, despite all its limitation and misrepresentations of their cause — but to no avail.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_153665" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><a href="https://static.972mag.com/www/uploads/2020/05/AS_WB_Wall-e1589879777813.jpg"><img title="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 )" src="https://static.972mag.com/www/uploads/2020/05/AS_WB_Wall-e1589879777813.jpg" alt="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 )" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="452" height="301"></a></p><p>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 )</p>
</div>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.972mag.com/bassem-tamimi-one-state/">single democratic state</a>
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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.972mag.com/blind-spot-us-palestine-israel-peace/">30 years after</a>
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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.972mag.com/palestinians-deserve-more-than-mahmoud-abbas/">follow through</a>.
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.</p>
<p>Thus, as Israel polishes the next phase of its settler colonial
project, it is time for Palestinians to return to their original demands
of <a href="https://www.972mag.com/decolonization-palestine-one-state/">full decolonization</a>
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 <a href="https://www.972mag.com/the-world-had-decades-to-stop-annexation-just-ask-palestinians/">never took action</a> to stop.</p><p>___________________<br></p><p>
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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