As the world focuses on Gaza, Israel is annexing the West Bank

Israel is stepping up its annexation of the West Bank by legalizing settlement outposts, authorizing the building of thousands of units and defunding the Palestinian Authority and stripping it of administrative powers, most recently in the so-called Area B. But what is more dangerous is the plan by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to transfer legal authority over the West Bank from the military to a civilian entity led by Jewish settlers.

Last week, the Israeli government signed off on a proposal to recognize five outposts — there are dozens of them — as settlements and impose punitive new measures on the PA, including withdrawing some of its civilian authority in Area B of the West Bank. Under the Oslo Accords, that area is run jointly by the PA and the Israeli army. But in recent years, Jewish settlers have been seizing private Palestinian land in Area B for cultivation and settlement in a clear violation of the Oslo Accords.

The PA has exclusive administrative control of Area A, which makes up about 18 percent of the total territory of the West Bank. Area B makes up about 22 percent. Together, they are home to some 2.8 million Palestinians.

Even before Benjamin Netanyahu formed his far-right government in December 2022, previous governments under him had approved plans for expanding the building of settlements in Area C, which makes up about 60 percent of the West Bank, including the entire Jordan Valley and land along the so-called Green Line. It is home to about 300,000 Palestinians.

But under this government, the ultranationalist Smotrich has launched plans to annex the entirety of Area C by transferring powers to a civilian administration, which is run by the settlers. In a taped speech to settlers that was leaked last month, Smotrich spoke explicitly of his plan to annex the West Bank. “I’m telling you, it’s mega-dramatic,” Smotrich said. “Such changes change a system’s DNA.”

This is being done without much fanfare and it will make the complete annexation of the West Bank a fait accompli

Osama Al-Sharif

The plan was launched 18 months ago and parts have been incrementally implemented. To deflect international scrutiny, the government has allowed the Defense Ministry to remain involved in the process, according to Smotrich, so that it appears that the military is still at the heart of West Bank governance.

This is being done without much fanfare and it will make the complete annexation of the West Bank a fait accompli. Already, Jewish settlers have managed to displace hundreds of Palestinian families in Area C through a government-backed campaign of terror. The UN humanitarian affairs office recorded 650 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank between Oct. 7 and March. At least nine Palestinians have been killed by the settlers, while Israeli occupation forces have killed more than 400 throughout the West Bank.

According to Israel’s B’Tselem human rights organization, Israeli settlers and their organizations control some 42 percent of West Bank land. In comparison, 21 percent of the settlements’ built-up areas lie on private Palestinian land. In the year to March, the government approved the building of more than 20,000 additional units in the occupied West Bank.

According to UN figures, about 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Smotrich hopes to raise that number to more than a million within months.

As of January, there were 146 Israeli settlements in the West Bank and 12 in East Jerusalem — all are illegal under international law. There are also at least 160 outposts that Smotrich is pushing the government to recognize.

Smotrich’s plan seeks to dismantle the PA or reduce it to an administrative body responsible for providing municipal services to Palestinians in enclaves or cantons that are encircled by settlements. These settlements are under Israeli law and are connected by a Jews-only road network.

For Smotrich, the de facto annexation will ensure that no Palestinian state will ever be created. Netanyahu supports the final objective, with minor disagreements over the tactics. In return for recognizing the five illegal outposts last week, Smotrich agreed to release some funds owed to the PA. But he is clear about his plan to strangle the Palestinian banking system and strip the PA of all authority over Area B.

Aside from the usual condemnations, no pressure is being applied on Israel to stop its slow encroachment

Osama Al-Sharif

With the world’s attention focused on the war in Gaza, Smotrich is carrying out his war on the West Bank. Aside from the usual condemnations from the international community, no pressure is being applied on Israel to stop its slow encroachment of Palestinian territory.

Apart from fragmenting the West Bank through patchy settlement expansion, the application of Israeli law to settlers and settlements creates a de facto extension of Israeli sovereignty. Although, officially, the West Bank is not annexed, settlers now live under Israeli civilian law rather than military law, which applies only to Palestinians.

The war on West Bank Palestinians includes usurping natural resources. Control over resources like water and land is often shifted toward settlements, reinforcing their permanence and making it harder to dismantle them.

The continued expansion of these illegal settlements makes it impossible to implement a two-state solution, as it fragments the territory earmarked for a future Palestinian state and complicates the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state. This de facto annexation is a result of the gradual absorption of the West Bank into Israel through the establishment and expansion of settlements and it now hinders the possibility of a negotiated resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Further integrating the settlements into the broader Israeli political, economic and security framework makes the eventual return of the West Bank to exclusive Palestinian control more challenging, if not impossible.

However, the de facto annexation creates additional challenges for Israel, which is already described as an apartheid state. It will continue to rule over 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, leaving it to deal with perpetual occupation and all the diplomatic, security and economic costs and challenges that entails, both domestically and abroad. But more alarming is the call by the Israeli far right to execute a plan of voluntary or forced transfer of Palestinians through economic and social pressures, terror, or both. The demographic challenge for Israel will not go away, with more than 7 million Palestinians remaining in historical Palestine.

The two-state solution today is a chimera. Open-ended occupation, economic strangulation, settler terrorism, confiscation of land and the dehumanization of Palestinians are the only realities. But Israel must not be allowed to carry out this ethnic cleansing of Palestinians with impunity.

With the two-state solution dead and buried — literally by Israeli bulldozers — the only viable alternative is a one-state reality and, for this to happen, change must happen in Israel itself. The war on Gaza may trigger such change sometime in the future, as Israelis begin to accept responsibility for the catastrophe they have inflicted on the Palestinians.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010