It all started fifty three years ago, after the Six Day War in June 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank of the Jordan river, and with it, (in today’s numbers) approx. 2.7 million Palestinians.
After the euphoria had died down somewhat, the planning of how to hold on to these newly occupied lands began, and is now culminating in the Annexation plans of the Israeli government.
Israel started building “settlements”, whereby groups of Jews were moved onto occupied Arab lands and started building their homes there. In all the years since 1967, it was clear that Israel was not negotiating to find a solution to the issue of the Palestinian people, but only to stall and make the world believe at the same time that efforts were made to come to an agreement.
Stalling is all that was intended and planned, from Begin to Shamir, to Olmert, and all had only one thing in mind: the Greater Israel, and to hell with the local population. A (short-lived) change in this policy came with the second tenure of Yitzhak Rabin, which resulted in the Oslo Accords, but that unfortunate hiccup was taken care of efficiently by extreme right-wing elements in Israeli society, including the current Prime Minister. And after this intermezzo of hope, the stalling policy was resumed with vigor.
Stalling was important because the main pillar in Israel Policy was the Settlement building. In order to “create facts on the ground”, time is required, a lot of time. Building houses and infrastructure, roads, electricity grid, educational and religious institutions, a University(!), it takes time. And of course moving people in large quantities, have them settle in, make them feel at home, it is a long process.
But now, with more than five hundred thousand Israelis living in the Occupied Territories, in established towns and villages, as well in both “legal” and “illegal” outposts, the time is ripe to move forward and stop stalling. The overall policy of “Creating Facts on the Ground” has been fulfilled and it will be impossible to remove a population that large, back to where they came from. And the distribution over the territory was carefully planned so that in addition to the populated areas, large stretches of land will need to be included, to ascertain territorial integrity.
Thus, the time is right for “Applying Sovereignty”. And Netanyahu has promised it many times and he talks now as if it is going to happen soon. So why doesn’t it?
There are I think many reasons that the magic date of July first has passed without anything happening. Without anything being planned seriously, without a discussion in the government, without preparations on the ground. But the main thing missing is the blessing of Uncle Sam of course. With a move like this, of which even Netanyahu and his cronies know it is blatantly illegal, no doubt the reaction world-wide will be one of condemnation, which may have severe consequences. So Israel will need a world power to stand beside it and defend it and compensate it when economic sanctions will be the result. And it seems that Uncle Sam, who isn’t the most reliable uncle in any case, is having cold feet, is changing his mind, doesn’t have time for his unruly family, or simply doesn’t want the hassle of having to deal with the fallout of such action, going against International Law.
Of course there are additional reasons that Netanyahu is postponing or cancelling the annexation, or at least a major part of it. Coalition considerations for one. Even if the coalition agreement stipulates that Netanyahu has the right to push forward with the annexation no matter what his partners think, and he might succeed even without their vote. But in this time of Corona, when so much money needs to be spend on getting the economy back on track, it really wouldn’t look good to waste a couple of billions on annexation.
Maybe he believes the time is not ripe because it will not make sufficient waves to draw away attention from his criminal trial. We will probably never know what the real reasons are when Netanyahu will postpone or cancel the annexation, but one thing is certain. The settlers and their fanatic leaders are not waiting to hear the reasons. They are not happy with the Americans for all the strings that they attached to the annexation process, but they are even more unhappy with Netanyahu, because they want him to proceed and not just the limited annexation we are now hearing about, but they see this as a unique opportunity to go for the whole thing and declare all of the West Bank to be part of Israel.
And the reason? It is ours! It always was ours! It will always be ours! Israel has a biblical right to the land and God himself has given it to us!
And some that are a little more down to earth will of course claim exactly that what the policies of Israel aimed for over the past 50 years: there are half a million Israelis living in Judea and Samaria and it will be completely impossible to remove them from the land and they have every right to live under Israeli rule, every right to call the land their own and thus the occupied territories must be annexed; it is their full right.
I can’t help but think of a major historical event that occurred in 1938-39, whereby a big powerful nation annexed a part of a neighboring state and claimed it as part of her own. Sudetenland was taken forcefully by the Germans, and the reasoning was similar. “The Sudetenland has always been part of the Reich”, “most of the people living in Sudetenland are Germans”. And their charismatic leader decided that if it isn’t given, it should be taken by force.
A bad comparison? I am not so sure, but indeed I hope that as far as the way it ended, the comparison will not hold.
But such monumental injustice as Israel is planning to commit cannot possibly end well.
And by then it already doesn’t matter anymore if you justified it because you are a religious fanatic or an imperialistic racist or both.
