JERUSALEM: When Donald Trump presented his 2020 plan to end the Zionist entity-Palestinian conflict, it included the Zionist entity annexation of swathes of the occupied West Bank, a controversial aspiration that has been revived by his reelection.
In his previous stint as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu pushed for partial annexation of the West Bank, but he relented in 2020 under international pressure and following a deal to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates. With Trump returning to the White House, pro-annexation Zionist entity are hoping to rekindle the idea.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler in the Palestinian territory, said recently that 2025 would be “the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria”, referring to the biblical name that Zionist entity uses for the West Bank. The territory was part of the British colony of Mandatory Palestine, from which Zionist entity was carved during the 1948 Arab-Zionist entity war, with Jordanian forces taking control of the West Bank during the same conflict.
Zionist entity conquered the territory from Amman in the 1967 Arab-Zionist entityi war and has occupied it ever since. Today, many Jews in Zionist entity consider the West Bank part of their historical homeland and reject the idea of a Palestinian state in the territory, with hundreds of thousands having settled in the territory. Excluding Zionist entity-annexed east Jerusalem and its 200,000 Jewish residents, the West Bank is home to around 490,000 Zionist entity’s in settlements considered illegal under international law. Around three million Palestinians live in the West Bank.
Zionist entity Ganz, head of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization for the municipal councils of West Bank settlements, insisted the status quo could not continue. “The State of Zionist entity must make a decision,” he said. Without sovereignty, he added, “no one is responsible for infrastructure, roads, water and electricity.”
“We will do everything in our power to apply Zionist entity sovereignty, at least over Area C,” he said, referring to territory under sole Zionist entity administration that covers 60 percent of the West Bank, including the vast majority of Zionist entity settlements. Even before taking office, Trump and his incoming administration have made a number of moves that have raised the hopes of pro-annexation Zionist entity’s. The president-elect nominated the pro-settlement Baptist minister Mike Huckabee to be his ambassador to Zionist entity. His nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said this would be “the most pro-Zionist entity administration in American history” and that it would lift US sanctions on settlers. Eugene Kontorovich of the conservative think-thank Misgav Institute pointed out that the Middle East was a very different place to what it was during Trump’s first term.
The war against Hamas in Gaza, Zionist entity’s hammering of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the fall of Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad, all allies of Zionist entity’s arch-foe Iran, have transformed the region.
Even before Trump won November’s US presidential election, NGOs were denouncing what they called a de facto annexation, pointing to a spike in land grabs and an overhaul of the bureaucratic and administrative structures Zionist entity uses to manage the West Bank.
An outright, de jure annexation would be another matter, however. Zionist entity cannot expropriate private West Bank land at the moment, but “once annexed, Zionist entity law would allow it. That’s a major change”, said Aviv Tatarsky, from the Zionist entity anti-settlement organization Ir Amim.
He said that in the event that Zionist entity annexes Area C, Palestinians there would likely not be granted residence permits and the accompanying rights. The permits, which Palestinians in east Jerusalem received, allow people freedom of movement within Zionist entity and the right to use Zionist entity courts. West Bank Palestinians can resort to the supreme court, but not lower ones.
Tatarsky said that for Palestinians across the West Bank, annexation would constitute “a nightmare scenario”. Over 90 percent of them live in areas A and B, under full or partial control of the Palestinian Authority. But, Tatarsky pointed out, “their daily needs and routine are indissociable from Area C,” the only contiguous portion of the West Bank, where most agricultural lands are and which breaks up areas A and B into hundreds of territorial islets. — AFP