West Bank, the Palestinian people watch Israeli moves with anxiety
Rights — di Luigi Mastrodonato
Negotiations over Israel's unilateral annexation of part of the Palestinian West Bank continue. But the Palestinian people are not standing by.
West Bank, the Palestinian people watch Israeli moves with anxiety
Negotiations over Israel's unilateral annexation of part of the Palestinian West Bank continue. But the Palestinian people are not standing by.
1 July was supposed to be the date of Israel's unilateral annexation of 30 per cent of the Palestinian territory of the West Bank. The operation was meant to follow "the deal of the century" announced in January by United States president Donald Trump, with which the aim is to put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Negotiations between Israel and the United States, as well as those within the Israeli government, are however still ongoing, and for the time being the colonisation of Palestine, already a reality for decades, has not yet been formalised.
Thousands have nonetheless taken to the streets in the West Bank, in the Gaza Strip, and across the rest of the world, to make their voices heard against what, as LifeGate is told by H.E. Abeer Odeh, Palestinian ambassador to Italy and former Palestinian minister of national economy, "is without doubt the worst plan ever for the Palestinian cause."
The Trump plan
That the United States has always sided with Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is beyond doubt. Even less in doubt is Donald Trump's position on the matter. During his term in office, he moved the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a very powerful gesture to symbolically assert Israeli control over the disputed city. Moreover, Trump declared that he no longer considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal, as international law would instead require.
After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!
It is in the wake of these ideas that in January the United States president presented his "deal of the century", a supposed peace plan based on a two-state solution, but completely tilted in Israel's favour. It was therefore rejected by Palestinian institutions from the outset.
Under the plan, Israel would have the right to officially annex all existing settlements on Palestinian territory — some 132 recognised settlements and 121 unofficial outposts populated by approximately 430,000 Jews — as well as the adjacent areas and access roads. These settlements have sprung up since 1967, when, following the victory in the Six-Day War, Israel began illegally transferring civilians into the area, building settlements and the related infrastructure to connect them to the state. Because the settlements are so numerous, Palestine under the new plan would become a patchwork state, interspersed with continuous Israeli exclaves — that is, territories separated from the main part of the state to which they belong — and therefore lacking any geographical continuity.
Trump's plan also provides for the annexation by Israel of areas of the West Bank that, under the 1993 Oslo Accords, were supposed to become part of a future Palestinian state but which to this day remain under Israeli civil and military administration.
Israel would also receive the Jordan Valley, which it already controls almost in its entirety, while Israeli control over West Jerusalem would likewise be confirmed. The concessions on the Palestinian side, by contrast, would be minimal: an area of East Jerusalem; the construction of a tunnel between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, to facilitate the movement of Palestinians; the transfer to Palestine of a piece of land on the border with Egypt; and the freezing for a period of time of Israeli construction and demolition on Palestinian territory.
Palestinian (and Israeli) opposition
"This is an unacceptable plan, not only for the Palestinian people but for the entire international community." Speaking to LifeGate is H.E. Abeer Odeh, Palestinian Ambassador to Italy and former Palestinian Minister of National Economy, the first woman to hold that post. The settlements already exist, as does an Israeli military administration in these and other territories of the West Bank. Donald Trump's plan would, however, turn this situation into an established reality, effectively legitimising it, providing a legal basis for the application of Israeli law across large swathes of Palestinian territory and, ultimately, setting a dangerous precedent.
"The clauses provided for under the Israeli-American agreement are contrary to international law and to the Palestinian right to self-determination. It grants Israeli settlers the right to transform themselves from occupiers into outright controllers, turning the occupation from temporary into permanent," Abeer Odeh stresses. "The result of this plan is that Palestinians are left without land, without control over natural resources, without connections to the outside world. All of this is very dangerous."
The international community has tried to make its voice heard. The plan has been condemned, just as Israeli settlement policies were condemned in the past. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, has called on Israel to abandon the annexation plan, while the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has spoken of the project's illegality. All of this, however, is not enough.
"There has been an international reaction, but it has not been strong enough. We know Israel: without concrete action being taken, without sanctions, it listens to no one. It is therefore important that the international community makes itself heard more forcefully and goes beyond simple messages. A change in approach is needed," Abeer Odeh continues. "What is required is an official recognition of Palestine as a state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and at the same time sanctions must be imposed on Israel. Otherwise it will continue to disregard international law and to ignore international positions."
A section of the Israeli public also opposes the plan. Not out of solidarity with the Palestinian cause, but because it is against any two-state solution, including the "Trumpian" one, which is decidedly favourable to the Israeli side. Settlement leaders have in mind a Greater Israel project that makes no concessions to the Palestinian side in annexation policies. The idea of giving up East Jerusalem, portions of territory on the border with Egypt and, more broadly, of allowing Palestine to exist, does not sit well with these more extremist groups, who are making their voices heard against Benjamin Netanyahu's government. A voice that is difficult to ignore, given that it comes from the very territories at the heart of the matter.
What to expect in the coming weeks
For some time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been pointing to 1 July as the decisive date for the implementation of the "deal of the century." The coalition agreement between Likud (Netanyahu's party) and the Blue and White party (led by Benny Gantz) identified that very date as the moment when the prime minister would submit the Washington agreement to the National Security Committee and then to the government for final approval. But the contents remain vague, the definitive annexation map has yet to be drawn up and is being examined by a dedicated Israeli-American committee, while in the meantime coalition partner Gantz, the Defence Minister, has slowed the process, underlining that there are other priorities such as the coronavirus emergency.
Netanyahu does not want to lose time, however, also because the occupant of the White House could change in November and the approach to the Israeli-Palestinian question would certainly be more moderate if the new president were Democrat Joe Biden. Negotiations are therefore pressing ahead; in recent hours there has been a meeting with US Ambassador David Friedman and special envoy Avi Berkowitz. Unilateral annexation, then, appears imminent.
The protests in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which broke out in recent days and intensified on 1 July on the "day of rage", are therefore continuing, to make voices heard against a fate that seems already written. Thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets against a plan that would grant them the most limited and fragmented territory ever offered by the international community. And on the Israeli side, the response is one of violence.
"There have been several demonstrations in recent days and more are planned. People are waiting to see what will happen but in the meantime they are taking to the streets, even though no one yet knows anything about the implementation of the plan since the Israeli Foreign Minister continues to remain vague," Abeer Odeh concludes. "The Israeli police are reacting in anything but a peaceful manner. They have arrested several people in recent days. They have entered Hebron, the area most affected by the coronavirus, and are patrolling it day and night, arresting dozens of people there as elsewhere. The reaction of the Israeli authorities to the protests is extremely harsh, but it is nothing new. For Palestinians, unfortunately, it is the norm."