Writing in the Al-Jazeera Arabic website, Dr. Abdullah Ma’ruf writes about Israel’s proposed law to annex the West Bank and its implications for Palestinian sovereignty and international law.
Israeli Knesset Member Itamar Ben-Gvir sets up an office on land belonging to the Salem family, which is threatened with eviction.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Knesset member and resigned minister, has set up an office on land belonging to the Salem family, which is under threat of eviction (Al Jazeera).
The Israeli Knesset recently passed, in its preliminary reading, a bill that allows Israelis to own land in the West Bank without the need for army approval. This significant development went largely unnoticed, overshadowed by a series of other events. It coincided with the third wave of prisoner exchanges under the Gaza ceasefire deal, the announcement of the martyrdom of Al-Qassam Brigades’ chief of staff Mohammad Deif, and other related events.
In fact, this bill, which still requires three more stages of approval, is one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation being passed by the Israeli government today through its settler movement arm, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionism Party.
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If approved, the law will have major implications for the legal status of lands in the West Bank, paving the way for their full annexation, as happened previously with the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem.
To understand the equation and its implications, we must return to the Jordanian rule of the West Bank before its occupation in 1967. After the unification of the West Bank and East Jerusalem with Jordan in 1950, Jordan passed a law known as the “Law on Lease and Sale of Real Estate to Foreigners” (Law No. 40 of 1953). This law prohibited the sale of land to non-Jordanians or non-Arabs, aimed at protecting state land, which at the time included the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
After Israel’s occupation of these areas in 1967, Israeli military law was applied to the West Bank, except for East Jerusalem, which Israel declared as part of its territory at the time without any real Arab or Islamic reaction. The Israeli military took control of the West Bank, treating it as occupied land rather than part of Israel under international law. No country recognized Israel’s claim to these areas, and this remains the case today.
As a result, the status quo law applied to the occupied territories remained, and Jordan’s earlier law continued to govern land sales in the West Bank, preventing the sale of land to settlers. The Palestinian Authority, established in 1994, continued to uphold this Jordanian law, preventing land sales to settlers, with Israel not objecting as the Oslo Accords granted the PA control over Areas A and B in the West Bank. Israel made no decisions regarding Area C, which remains under full Israeli control according to Oslo, presenting itself as a state of law that adheres to international norms.
In light of this, Israel, with the aim of building settlements in the West Bank while maintaining its “legal” image, circumvented Jordanian law by declaring certain areas military zones for security purposes, in which it built settlements. It also declared some public lands as “state-owned” under Israeli military control.
Israel established a Civil Administration under the Israeli military responsible for permitting settlement activities and registering settlements in the names of institutions and companies approved by this administration. Settlement construction proceeded with the Israeli military’s approval.
It is important to note that the Israeli military’s presence was always essential, as these lands were occupied and not part of Israel, even though Israel applied civil law within settlements, as it was dealing with its citizens, not the occupied land.
All these complications were meant to allow Israel to present itself to the international community as a state that adheres to international law and respects UN resolutions regarding occupied territories.
Now, the new bill takes a significant step by repealing the Jordanian law of 1953, which had prohibited land sales in the West Bank to settlers, and eliminating the need for settlers to establish companies or institutions approved by the Israeli army to register land in their names. If passed, the law will allow settlers to directly buy and register land in the West Bank, just as they would in Tel Aviv, Haifa, or any of the areas occupied in 1948, which the world recognizes as part of Israel.
This law effectively removes the Israeli military’s authority over the West Bank, treating it as part of Israel, just like the 1948 territories. In other words, it eliminates the status of the West Bank as occupied land, considering it part of Israel.
The danger of this law lies in the fact that Israel is no longer concerned with international law or its image before the world. This represents a shift in Israel’s strategy in dealing with international institutions. It’s part of a broader approach taken by the Israeli government during the Gaza war, such as its decision to stop recognizing the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency).
Israel now positions itself as a “muscle” state, not one bound by the rule of law, and no longer cares about its image globally. This means that it can do whatever it wants, ignoring international law, as it seems safe from accountability under the new Trump administration, allied with the religious Zionist movement.
This opens the door for the Israeli government to bypass all red lines in Palestine and its surroundings. The most significant and dangerous of these red lines in the West Bank is the process of annexing the West Bank to Israel and attempting to implement the idea of transfer and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank’s Palestinian population, an idea once advocated by former Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi, who was assassinated by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in a Jerusalem hotel in 2001.
In truth, the first to suffer from this process will be Jordan, which will find itself facing an unprecedented storm that could destabilize it entirely. This is not far from Trump’s earlier demands for Jordan and Egypt to accept Gazans, as he phrased it (a softened version of “ethnically cleansing” them) into their countries.
In fact, involving Jordan in this issue, despite the geographical distance from Gaza, can be seen as a preliminary test balloon for Jordan to accept the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank, as part of Trump’s plan to end the Palestinian issue entirely, aligned with the Israeli far-right, particularly the religious Zionist movement, which has found a trustworthy ally in Trump.
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The approval of this law can only be understood in the context of the liquidation of the Palestinian cause. By stripping the Israeli military of its oversight over the occupied territories in the West Bank, Israel is signaling its clear intention to annex the West Bank.
Palestinians, the Arab countries, particularly those surrounding Palestine, and official Arab and Islamic regimes, especially Jordan, must be alert to the dangers of this frantic movement. The Israeli far-right is not just another party in the Knesset; it is now the actual Israeli state. Its aspirations and proposals are no longer limited to itself, as it now enjoys the support of a real ally who shares its ideological stance: the new US administration.
It is impossible to ignore the nature of this new administration or treat the Israeli-American right-wing ambitions as mere dreams that can be blocked by international law. The Trump administration does not respect international law, and we should not forget the dangerous statement made by US Senator Lindsey Graham during his visit to Jerusalem on November 27: “The Rome Statute doesn’t apply to Israel, the United States, France, Germany, or Great Britain, because it wasn’t conceived to come after us”.
Thus, they plainly declare that they are above international law, simply because “it wasn’t conceived to come after us,” according to Graham’s words.
Therefore, the urgent task is to preemptively address the anticipated annexation through real, deterrent political actions, going beyond mere condemnation and refusal. There needs to be actual solidarity with the peoples of the region and a change in the way the Palestinian issue is approached by the entire Arab establishment. It is no longer a secret that the Israeli project not only seeks to swallow up Palestinian land but now also sees itself entitled to expand at everyone else’s expense.
(Translated and prepared by Palestine Chronicle Staff)
