Daily Times

Nothing seems so much morally fatal and legally lethal for the future of justice and international peace as that of Trump’s current controversial move –to recognize the ultra vires Israel annexation of the Palestinian Territories in the West Bank as de jure or intra vires– certainly downplays the writ of international law. According to the US State Department Spokesperson, ” As we have made consistently clear, we are prepared to recognise Israeli actions to extend Israeli sovereignty and the application of Israeli law to areas of the West Bank that the vision foresees as being part of the State of Israel”. According to the terms of the unity agreement reached by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main rival, Benny Gantz of the Blue and White Party, the issue of extending Israeli sovereignty can be brought to the Knesset for a vote on July 1 at the earliest.

In view of the Foreign Affairs Magazine, ”Annexing the West Bank would threaten Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, anger allies in the Gulf, undermine the Palestinian Authority, and endanger Israel as a Jewish democracy”. The Israeli-occupied West Bank was captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. The Palestinians rightly and justifiably seek all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem for an independent state. The Israeli settlements there are considered to be illegal by most of the international community. Trump’s long-awaited Mideast plan, albeit controversially known as the deal of the century, unveiled earlier this year , characterizing an important radical change in the Trump plan is the toxic elimination of the distinction (accepted by all previous US administration) between on the one hand the large settlement blocs around Jerusalem and close to the June 4, 1967 lines, which were intended to be annexed within the new boundaries of the State of Israel; while making the settlements deep in the Palestinian territories. More than 700,000 Israelis have moved into settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Most Israelis believe that the preferred way to secure a democratic nation home for the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael within secure and recognized boundaries is based on the two-state principle

It is a truism that the West Bank settlements are illegal according to international law and an obstacle to a two-state solution to the conflict. The European Union has also criticised Trump’s plan as failing to achieve a two-state solution. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the State Department’s remarks, saying it reflected ”an unqualified US bias to the [Israeli] occupation and its expansionist colonial policies at the expense of the territory of the State of Palestine.” “Annexation of parts of the West Bank would constitute a serious violation of international law, deal a devastating blow to the two-state solution, close the door to a renewal of negotiations, and threaten efforts to advance regional peace,” the United Nations Mideast envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, told the U.N. Security Council last week. In January, this year Trump said Jerusalem will remain Israel’s undivided capital. But he also said under the plan, “eastern Jerusalem” would serve as a capital of a State of Palestine–without mentioning a word of its any demarcation.

At least 60 pieces of legislation were drafted by right-wing members of the Knesset during the last parliament to move Israel from a state of de facto to de jure annexation, according to a database by Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group. Almost two-thirds of the Palestinian territory, including most of its most fertile and resource-rich land, is under full Israeli control. About 400,000 Jewish settlers living there enjoy the full rights and privileges of Israeli citizens. Paradoxically, many of those bills were opposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even though they were drafted from within his own ruling coalition. Netanyahu argued that it would be wrong to pre-empt US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, implying that annexation is high on the agenda. The UN, the EU including several European states, including the United Kingdom, Germany and France, have warned Israel against annexing parts of the occupied West Bank.

Historically, the West Bank spent 19 years under Jordanian occupation before Israel took control. Some occupiers have created proxy entities, such as those in South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh, whose purpose is to enable the occupier to evade legal responsibility and condemnation. Notably, Netanyahu fostered a two-state solution in his 2009 Bar-Ilan University speech but has backed out from it since 2015 and cast his political fortunes with an idee fixe of an ideological right-wing base. For Netanyahu now, the annexation of the Jordan Valley and Israeli settlements in the West Bank looms as a tantalizing legacy. Ironically, Trump has unjustly avowed that no settlement will be evacuated. This consequentially leads to a reduction in the size of the would be-Palestinian state to about 70 percent of the West Bank area. It is why the Ramlah- based Palestinian leadership has refused to negotiate with the Trump administration.

A study reveals that most Israelis believe that the preferred way to secure a democratic nation home for the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael within secure and recognized boundaries is based on the two-state principle. In their view, maintaining the status quo is not an option for them, as it means a dangerous Israeli decline into a disastrous reality of one state. They also think that such a state will either comprise a non-Jewish majority or will be non-democratic-intrinsically lacking equality between its inhabitants; it would perpetually be on the brink of civil war. Given the assumption that Israel has nonetheless a strategic window of opportunity of taking independent and coordinated steps while negotiating a longer-term agreement, several realistic plans were put on the shelf.

Most discernibly, instead of endorsing the Trump administration envisaged plan, The Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) has been thinking on a comprehensive political and military plan for starting traction toward a reality of two distinct political entities. Among other noteworthy things, it advocated for drawing a provisional border that would encompass the large blocks of settlements comprising ~75% of the settlers without annexing any West Bank territory until a final agreement is attained, If the unity government has to work for peace it must jettison the Trump-crafted plan.

And yet consequently, annexation will involve a perilous and nearly irreversible process, endangering Israel on numerous fronts: It will face international reprisals; a degradation of diplomatic relations with global and regional allies; and a diminished economic outlook. Needless to say, the inroads of the Oslo peace will be all but vanished, undermining the territorial viability of a future Palestinian state thereby jeopardizing the security and civil coordination with the Palestinian Authority. Rather than approaching the two-state-for-two-people vision, West Bank annexation will bring the Jewish-democratic state of Israel to a dangerous crossroads, and most certainly to the point of no return.

The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan