The West Bank
It seems that Israel has no shame and continues going rogue, in particular vis-à-vis the Palestinians. Not only have they killed more than 70,000 Palestinians during the last couple of years as well as destroying the infrastructure and all major building in the Gaza Strip, now they are seriously talking about annexing the West Bank. U.S. Vice-President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have criticized a move by Israel’s parliament towards annexation of the occupied West Bank.
Far-right politicians in the Knesset took the symbolic step of giving preliminary approval to a bill applying Israeli law in the territory, which the Palestinians claim as part of a hoped-for independent state. At the end of a trip to Israel, Vance branded it a “very stupid political stunt”. Rubio warned before flying to Israel that annexation would threaten President Donald Trump’s plan to end the conflict in Gaza.
Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu called the move a deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord. The West Bank is on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the Gaza Strip. Since 1967, the territory has been under Israeli occupation.
The territory first emerged in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War as a region occupied and subsequently annexed by Jordan. Jordan ruled the territory until the 1967 Six-Day War, when it was occupied by Israel. Since then, Israel has administered the West Bank.
The West Bank remains central to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians consider it the heart of their envisioned state, along with the Gaza Strip. Right-wing Israelis see it as their ancestral homeland, with numerous biblical sites. There is a push among some Israelis for partial or complete annexation of this land. Additionally, it is home to a rising number of Israeli settlers. The West Bank has an estimated population of 2,747,943 Palestinians and over 700,000 Israeli settlers, of which approximately 220,000 live in East Jerusalem.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office stressed that his right-wing Likud party and its ultra-Orthodox coalition partners did not vote for the bill. The prime minister’s office put out the statement in English after Vance was asked about the vote by reporters before he boarded his plane at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport. Time magazine also published an interview with President Trump in which he insisted that annexation would not happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. “Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened,” he added.
At the same time, Israel is slowly but steadily moving into the West Bank. Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war. The settlements are illegal under international law, a position supported by an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice last year. Netanyahu has previously spoken in support of annexing West Bank land but has not advanced this due to the risk of alienating the US and Arab countries which have built relations with Israel after decades of enmity.
Ultra-nationalists in Netanyahu’s governing coalition have repeatedly called for Israel to annex the West Bank outright. It is a critical time in the region as the Trump administration attempts to push for the start of talks on the second phase of the 20-point Gaza peace plan.
The first phase, which includes a ceasefire, the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces and an influx of aid, came into effect earlier this month. Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of breaching the agreement over deadly incidents, but it has so far held.
The second phase of the peace plan would involve setting up an interim government in Gaza, deploying an international stabilization force, the withdrawal of Israeli troops, and the disarmament of Hamas. At this point, it seems unlikely that Hamas would hand in their weapons as they are doing their best to consolidate their power in the Gaza Strip, and executing any opposition. It is likely that the conflict will take a pause for a while but as long as Hamas is armed and Israel keeps pushing more settlers into the West Bank and threatens with annexation, it is likely barely a temporary lull until the next conflict flairs up. Another issue is the apartheid-based Israeli constitution, which is only for Jews, thereby making it impossible for Palestinians to live decent lives within Israel. Things are currently going in the right direction, but there are many hurdles to overcome to achieve sustainable peace and an independent Palestinian State seems even further away.