After Golan, PM Netanyahu is saddled with an idee fixe of annexing the West Bank. “I am going to extend [Israeli] sovereignty and I don’t distinguish between settlement blocs and the isolated settlements”, said Netanyahu, a few days earlier to the election. The stark reality is: illegal annexation is underway. The most devious and hoodwinking transformations are taking place after close to 52 years of the unwarranted Israeli occupation. For the past few decades, it has been an Israeli strategy to make profound defacto changes– to both the landscape and the demography of the de jure Palestinian territories in the West Bank captured after the Six Day Arab-Israeli War in 1967. Yet it could be Netanyahu’s worst utopia to illegally expand the state and expect that the world will accept the fake Israeli ownership of the Palestinian lands.
After forming a coalition of right-wing parties, Netanyahu’s next target is to annex the West Bank that he promised during his election campaign, especially with the illegal support of US President Donald Trump, who accepted Israel’s sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights on March 25 and Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in December 2017 respectively. Israel also passed a contentious law in February 2017 thereby allowing the government to seize land privately owned by Palestinians in the West Bank to be granted for Jewish settlements. Palestinian landowners could apply for annual rents, request compensations or be given another parcel.
Apparently, the world views of the Israeli policy of the annexation count it both a violation of international law and a breach of the Oslo accords. Netanyahu has never been serious about peace and there is no doubt that Netanyahu’s evil plan of building and expanding settlements has long amounted to nothing but an unofficial, creeping annexation. “Everyone says you can’t hold on to captured territories, but it is possible. If it was conquered in a war of self-defense it’s ours,” said the official, saying the U.S. recognition of Israel’s rights to the Golan on the basis of this principle could be the foundation for a campaign calling on the White House to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.
Cleverly, Netanyahu exploits Hamas’ factor to spur horizontal and vertical polarisation between the Gaza based Hamas and the West Bank-based Fatah, thereby upending dents in the Palestinian unity and preventing peace dialogue with pragmatists among those factions
Veritably, contemporary international law does not distinguish between defensive and other wars. And yet arguably, the maintenance and expansion of settlements ; the associated infrastructure in the West Bank; the exploitation of natural resources for the benefit of Israel’s economy; and policies that encourage the transfer of Israeli citizens into occupied territory ;and most significantly, the forcible of transfer Palestinians within and outside that territory-all that systematically point to reflect on Israel’s intent to permanently change the status of Palestinian territory while undermining the international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The shift of population is meant to artificially change the Municipal metrics in East Jerusalem.
And yet, while granting sovereignty to Israeli settlements on West Bank land that the Palestinians demand a future state, presumably along with the roads and infrastructure tethering those places to the rest of Israel would drastically leave the Palestinians at best with an archipelago of disconnected territory. The 58% of the West Bank is now under Israeli military jurisdiction, though settlers are subject to civilian law, as Israeli citizens. Legally, annexation by force or coercion is a blatant violation of the very fundamental precepts of international law. UN Security Council Resolution 2334 clearly reiterates the significance of states abstaining from recognising Israel’s internationally committed ultra vires acts. In this regard, they are duly obliged to distinguish between Israeli and Palestinian territory, thereby excluding settlement-based entities and activities from their dealings with Israel. Unfortunately, third party actors — including the European Union and its member states –have taken notable, but still insufficient steps to deter this effect in recent years.
Per se, the legal and administrative system– maintained by the Israel authorities in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem–underpins one set of rules for Palestinians; and another for Israelis residing in the territory. By incorporating two separate systems for Israelis and Palestinians, Israeli authorities do systematically violate the international law prohibition on discrimination. Israel’s prolonged occupation has created a situation of serious human rights violations compounded by unbearable living conditions for both the communities and individuals.
Cleverly, Netanyahu exploits Hamas’ factor to spur horizontal and vertical polarisation between the Gaza based Hamas and the West Bank-based Fatah, thereby upending dents in the Palestinian unity and preventing peace dialogue with pragmatists among those factions. This Machiavellian policy foils any possibility of creating a Palestinian state, with the strategic goal of annexing the West Bank. But Netanyahu’s political opponent Benny Gantz’ West Bank disengagement plan from the area ‘C’, a policy that he advocated during his election campaign, seems a far better pragmatic plan than Netanyahu’s divisive trajectory.
Horrendously, devious Netanyahu’s plan of annexing the occupied Palestinian territories via using the narrative of defensive war is a difficult voyage to an uncertain destination wherein dystopian future Israeli state– the embodiment of evil occupations and annexations– may nonetheless have everything except legitimacy, sovereignty, and peace. Therefore, embracing the annexation of parts or all of the West Bank is disastrous for Israel’s own interests. Israel would nullify its prospects as a democratic Jewish state by rejecting the possibility of peace with a future state of Palestine and diplomatic relations with the Arab world. Israel will also lose any claim that it is a law-abiding member in the comity of nation. Is trajectory worth all that?
Moreover, such illegitimate Israeli actions based on the flagrant violation of international law, particularly the forcible transfer of population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem may amount to persecution, which is regarded as a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) must consider the implications of these actions in its preliminary examination of the situation of Palestine that started since January 2015.
The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan