The de-jure annexation of the West Bank is most likely to be implemented in what is known as “Area C”, which makes up roughly 60% of the total territory and contains vast reserves of freshwater, arable land and other resources.
A recent report published by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, indicates that a plan is in motion for Israel to formally annex the occupied West Bank within the next weeks. This is said to be part of a broader comprehensive initiative to kill all hopes for a two-state solution.
As the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appears to be cornered by never-ending war fronts in Lebanon and Gaza that he refuses to give up, his political survival appears to be leaning on further refining his cabinet into a government of ultra-nationalist religious fanatics and loyalists.
When Israel decided to declare war on Lebanon in mid-September, it did so with a number of pledges to the public, namely the return of around 100,000 settlers to their homes in northern occupied Palestine and a defeat of Hezbollah that would force it beyond the Litani River in southern Lebanon.
However, the very opposite appears to be the case, as even more Israelis have fled the north, amidst an escalation of the number of projectiles fired towards the areas they inhabit.
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The Israeli pivot to Lebanon had come almost immediately after their military operation, which was targeting the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah, reached a dead end and had failed to deliver the victories that Benjamin Netanyahu had set out to achieve on October 7, 2023.
Having come up short in the Gaza Strip, failing to defeat Hamas and return their captives by force, a distraction was needed. Quickly thereafter, Lebanon became the new Rafah. However, the blows that were achieved against Hezbollah, combined with the some 3,500 people murdered throughout Lebanon, failed to defeat or even deter the Lebanese resistance.
Instead, the Israeli ground forces have dramatically failed to take any significant portion of southern Lebanon, as Hezbollah continues to escalate its missile, drone and rocket fire on a daily basis.
Now, the Israeli Prime Minister, who had dissolved his emergency war cabinet in June and recently decided to replace his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, with an inexperienced loyalist named Israel Katz, is again poised to register another “achievement”.
According to anonymous sources in Washington who spoke to veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, within as short a period as the next two weeks, the new “achievement” of Benjamin Netanyahu could well be the de-jure annexation of the West Bank.
Some analysts have posited that Netanyahu is acting alone as a kind of Dictator, in carrying out such actions. The reality is that although he must navigate his way through a hostile political minefield in order to retain his power, he is receiving the full support of Israel’s political, military and security establishment in the aggressive steps he is taking.
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That is because he is actively playing politics, while also implementing the most extreme of Zionist endeavors and using the cover of his ongoing war in order to get away with it.
For instance, it would not have been politically possible for him to commit genocide and mass ethnic cleansing in Gaza, without the war propaganda that the entire Israeli establishment has weaponized. Nor would he have received support for a massive attack on Lebanon, without the situation already having deteriorated dramatically domestically first.
Now, in a move that will certainly play into the aspirations of his Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich and Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, the annexation of the West Bank appears to be on the agenda.
However, this is not simply a reflection of the Israeli Premier being held hostage by such fanatical members of the Religious Zionism Party alliance but is instead the implementation of a long-desired goal that Netanyahu had been publicly promising to deliver on since 2019.
The de-jure annexation of the West Bank is most likely to be implemented in what is known as “Area C”, which makes up roughly 60% of the total territory and contains vast reserves of freshwater, arable land and other resources. It also is home to Israel’s current military chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, who also lives in a West Bank settlement.
It was no coincidence that Israel’s richest billionaire, Miriam Adelson, gifted the campaign of Republican Party leader Donald Trump, 100 million dollars with the quid pro quo that enables Israel to annex the West Bank.
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This kind of money being invested in a candidate does not happen unless such a policy is already in the works, indicating that this annexation is not a strategy that has simply popped up out of the blue.
Yet, if such a measure is to be implemented, the Israeli government will again inevitably run into major issues that are going to arise out of such a scenario. It is difficult to interpret what exactly will happen on a popular level inside the territory, especially given the de-facto death sentence that annexation would impose on the Palestinian Authority.
Palestinian human rights groups have already been warning that Israel’s heavily armed settler population may seek to launch a war against civilians in the territory, with the aim of ethnically cleansing villages and towns of their populations. If we are to see such a development, this could spark significant armed rebellion.
It is also likely that we will eventually see another pivot to Syria, which will open up a whole other can of worms for Tel Aviv. Each new front that Israel opens is a new catastrophe for civilians in the targeted area but also represents another strategic blunder for Israel in the long term.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
