Netanyahu’s annexation: The steal of the century

After nearly 18 months of political deadlock, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his main rival Benny Gantz, have agreed to form a coalition government. The agreement will see Netanyahu serve as Israel’s prime minister for the next 18 months before handing power over to Gantz for the remainder of the three-year term.

This brings an end to an intense period of politics for Israel during which the country held three back-to-back national elections. During campaigning for the first round of elections Netanyahu promised to annex Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank. While this was not a campaign promise of Gantz, the annexation of up to a third of the West Bank is part of the coalition deal that has brought Gantz to government. It is now being reported in Israel that Netanyahu could begin the process of annexing Palestinian land as early as 1 July.[1]

Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been considered illegal under international law by the majority of the international community for decades. This resolve was strengthened in 2016 after the United States finally chose to withhold its veto – which it had used more than 50 times previously to block resolutions related to Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank – to allow United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to pass. The resolution states:

“All measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions.”[2]

In a wider sense, the unilateral annexation of occupied land amounts to an act of aggression and is forbidden under international law according to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314 and the Fourth Geneva Conventions.[3] [4]

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The increasingly likely annexation of the West Bank saw the United States Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, fly to Israel to meet with Netanyahu and Gantz. During his visit Pompeo urged the Israeli leaders to consider “all the factors” in the proposed annexation, before concluding that the Israeli government “will have both the right and the obligation to make a decision on how they are going to do it.”[5] [6]

One of the factors Pompeo urged the Israeli leaders to consider was to ensure that any annexation of the West Bank does not conflict with Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan. Unveiled in January 2020, the so-called ‘deal of the century’ gives a green light for Israel to annex all of its settlements in the West Bank as well as other ‘strategic’ areas amounting to roughly 30% of the West Bank. As part of the plan, the Palestinians would receive two pockets of land to the south of Gaza.

The below map on the left shows what the Palestinian Authority and the vast majority of the international community see as the basis for a negotiated settlement to the Israel-Palestine conflict: the two-state solution. The map on the rights shows what Israel and Palestine will look like according to Trump’s plan:

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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the proposal, stating it would make “Swiss cheese” of Palestinian territory and finally “put an end to the Question of Palestine”.[7] A few days later Abbas outlined his own vision for peace. Instead of US-sponsored initiatives (drawn up in collaboration with Israel and lacking any Palestinian representation), the Palestinian President suggested “holding an international peace conference under the auspices of the Middle East Quartet, which includes the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, and the permanent member states of the Security Council, in the presence of Palestine and Israel.”[8]

However, with Netanyahu looking to bring about the annexation, negotiating with the Palestinians directly, and on equal terms, does not appear to be an option. Because of this, only a few days ago, Mahmoud Abbas withdrew Palestine from all “agreements and understandings” with the United States and Israeli governments.[9]

So far the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United Nations, have voiced their opposition to the proposed annexation, with each party recognising it as a contravention of international law.[10] [11] However, the question now is, will this opposition remain rhetorical, as so often has been the case, or will the international community act, and sanction Israel should it go on to violate international law?

Netanyahu’s planned annexation doesn’t only target Palestinian land. As part of the plan the Jordan Valley would also be absorbed into the Israeli state. The Jordan Valley is sovereign territory of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Since 1994 the Valley had been leased to Israel as part of a peace deal. However, in 2019 Jordan reserved the right not to renew the lease in response to pressure at home following demonstrations in the Jordanian capital Amman.[12]

Of course, the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, rejected Trump’s plan for the region back in January. However, since the increased talk of annexation going ahead, the Jordanian monarch has begun to warn of conflict for the whole region.[13]

Trump’s plan for peace, or to give it its full title, Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People is not a plan for peace. It is the blueprint for a violation of international law that will bring about yet more conflict. And, as the past century of conflict has shown, it will be the ever more vulnerable Palestinians set to lose the most.

It was actually Netanyahu that first dubbed Trump’s Middle East peace plan the ‘deal of the century’. However, is the damage that any annexation will do to Israel’s international standing, as well as the suffering that some Israelis will go through as a result of conflict, a price worth paying?

Footnotes:

[1] https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/annexation-as-early-as-july-1-under-netanyahu-gantz-deal-625304

[2] http://www.un.org/webcast/pdfs/SRES2334-2016.pdf

[3] http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/instree/GAres3314.html

[4] https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Comment.xsp?action=openDocument&documentId=C4712FE71392AFE1C12563CD0042C34A

[5] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/israel-circumspect-annexation-occupied-west-bank-200513170550299.html

[6] https://www.timesofisrael.com/pompeo-new-government-has-right-and-obligation-to-decide-if-and-how-to-annex/

[7] https://twitter.com/Palestine_UN/status/1227262359175081986

[8] https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/02/palestinian-abbas-conference-peace-process-israel.html

[9] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/20/palestinian-leader-mahmoud-abbas-ends-security-agreement-with-israel-and-us

[10] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/possible-israeli-annexation-of-the-west-bank-foreign-secretary-statement

[11] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/eu-warn-israel-west-bank-annexation-200423170401941.html