Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi
ISRAEL’S government is unilaterally preparing to be
gin annexing parts of the occupied West Bank as early
as next month, ordering its military currently to bolster security there despite facing possible blowback from Europe and Arab States over the said plan. Because of its lethality, immorality and illegality, the plan is facing international opposition. The Palestinians have called for countries to boycott a June 25-26 conference in Bahrain to discuss economic aspects of the peace deal. More than 600,000 Israelis now live in West Bank settlements and in East Jerusalem, among three million Palestinians. Amid the strong resistance from the OIC, the UN, and the European Union, France, Spain, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg are all pushing for tough punishments against Israel if it ignores warnings on the annexation. Recently, the Palestinian Authority, which controls major cities in the West Bank, warned to cut all agreements signed with Israel and the US if the annexation goes ahead. As Tel Aviv contemplates annexing large parts of the West Bank, in tandem with Trump’s so-called peace plan, some seemingly vexing interpretations of Israel’s identity — as a Jewish State — glaringly contradicts its relationship to democracy, have come to the fore.
The views of Israel’s Jewish identity do not only concern Palestinians in the occupied West Bank but also the approximately 20 per cent of Israeli citizens who identify as Arab or Palestinian. Now there is a U.S. plan proposing not only annexing occupied territories but also carving out towns in Israel to hand over to the Palestinian Authority, just because their Israeli inhabitants aren’t Jewish. In general, the term “annexation,” or “applying sovereignty,” is a declaration that territories defined as occupied under international law become an integral part of the territory of the state annexing it – especially in terms of the law, jurisdiction and administration applicable to them. This unjustly replaces the military rule (“belligerent occupation’’).
Since the 1967 Six-Day-War, the Israeli occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (POT), comprising the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, has been unjustly revised by a process of incremental or creeping annexation. This move towards annexation, particularly in the West Bank, has been tactically achieved by implementing long-term, irreversible changes to the occupied territory in contravention of the main tenets of the law of occupation under jus in bello. Despite the UN Resolutions and repeated calls from the international community, Israel continues to persistently reject both the applicability of human rights in situations of armed conflict as well as the “extraterritorial applicability of human rights” to the PoT. Pursuant to its reasoning, Israel accepts to be bound by human rights law in the territories it has formally purported to annex, namely East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
Meanwhile, the Israeli leaders agreed on a plan to start a formal process this summer to claim sections of the occupied Palestinian territory as part of Israel, Haaretz daily newspaper reported. The plan would be presented to the government if Washington gives a green light to it, the Israeli newspaper said. The Trump Administration previously did not object to the annexation of Israeli settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank. For months, Netanyahu and his fellow right-wing leaders have pledged to carry out unilateral annexations as soon as possible – with the deliberate goal of making the occupation permanent and preventing the creation of a viable Palestinian State alongside Israel. Yet on 08 April 11 members of the U.S. Congress issued the following statement regarding Israel’s unilateral annexation of West Bank territory:
“As strong supporters of Israel and the United States-Israel relationship, we are deeply concerned about reports that the coalition government being formed in Israel intends to move forward with unilateral annexation of West Bank territory. This runs counter to decades of bipartisan U.S. foreign policy and to the will of the House of Representatives as recently expressed in H.Res.326, which opposes unilateral annexation and explicitly warns against the dangers of such an effort for peace in the region and Israel’s security.” 127 British politicians from all parties have written to the British Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary urging them to make clear publicly to Israel that any annexation of occupied Palestinian territory “will have severe consequences including sanctions”.
While voicing his serious concern the German FM Heiko Mass said, “Together with the European Union, we believe that annexation would not be compatible with international law,” Maas told a joint press conference with his Israeli counterpart, Gabi Ashkenazi, calling instead for the resumption of talks toward a two-state solution.In an unprecedented intervention, politicians including former cabinet members, ministers and senior diplomats, demanded actions, not words in opposing any Israeli annexation. They believe that this would be a mortal blow to chances of peace between Israelis and Palestinians based on any viable two-state solution. ’’A joint statement by the UK Government, together with France, Germany, Italy and Spain, on 12 September last year could not have been clearer. Unilateral annexation of any part of the West Bank would be “a serious breach of international law”.
Four cabinet members from the era of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien are among 58 former Canadian diplomats and politicians who added their names to a letter calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government to show stronger resistance to Israeli annexation of the West Bank, planned for July. Signatories to the letter include former ambassadors to Israel who served under both liberal and conservative governments, as well as many other diplomats who represented Canada’s interests in the Middle East, Canadian news agency CBC reported on last Tuesday. Al Otaiba, the UAE envoy to the USA in his article published in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, said such a move would undermine Israel’s relations with the Arab world.“ Annexation will certainly and immediately upend Israeli aspirations for improved security, economic and cultural ties with the Arab world and with the UAE,” Al Otaiba wrote. Palestinians have sent a counter-proposal envisaging a “sovereign Palestinian state, independent and demilitarized” to the Quartet, made up of the UN, the US, EU and Russia, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said last Tuesday.
—The writer, an independent ‘IR’ researcher-cum-international law analyst based in Pakistan, is member of European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on IR, Critical Peace & Conflict Studies, also a member of Washington Foreign Law Society and European Society of International Law.
