Is West Bank annexation imminent?
JVL Introduction
2025 will be the year of Israeli annexation of the West Bank. This is not the cry of an Israeli or diaspora Zionist fringe character speaking at a rally in the streets it is a statement made by the Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich; a man to whom Netanyahu also gave full powers on settlement policy in the West Bank. This, then is the thinking at the highest level of government and, especially with Donald Trump just weeks away from becoming President, no one is surprised. Those who Israel would once have considered dangerous extremists are at the heart of government and “Smotrich has also been open about saying the quiet part out loud: that the purpose of Israeli settlements is to cut the geographic continuity of Palestinian cities in the West Bank, preventing the viability of a future Palestinian state. ”
The reality, as argued here, is that it is already happening and has been for years, accelerating under the last Trump Presidency bv the end of which, “the U.S. had recognized Israel’s sovereignty over occupied Jerusalem, the occupied Golan Heights, and, critically, over the hundreds of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. ”
In July 2024, The International Court of Justice has declared the occupation illegal and ordered the dismantling of Settlements within a year. What comes next matters – for Palestinians and for all of us, reliant as we are on international law. But if the annexation is completed, it will not only be the responsibility of the far right in Israel or even the complicity of Trump, nearly all western governments have failed to act against Settlement expansion and the many violations of human rights, and wider international, law for decades.
LL
This article was originally published by Mondoweiss on Fri 29 Nov 2024. Read the original here.
West Bank Annexation: Will Israel finally do the deed?
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced that 2025 will be the year Israel annexes the West Bank. With the Trump administration entering the White House, the stage is set for Israel to finally take total control over the occupied territory.
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Zionist Israel must resettled all illegal colonists in Israel within the Green Line and hand over the buildings to Palestinians in compensation for Zionist Crimes Against Humanity. This includes those paid for by the German Government as compensation for THEIR Holocaust against Jews.
I understand this and the threat. However, Palestinians will remain on the West bank as in the rest of occupied Palestine.
This suggests that long-term the IDF will have to police Palestinians and their resistance. Do the Zionists have a strategy for this apart from the current violent surpression?
Other than killing hopes for a 2 state solution- an idea that died years ago anyway, what is the difference between annexation and the status quo?