Israel’s annexation juggernaut unlikely to be stopped

It was only a matter of when. It has always only been a matter of when. For years, Israeli leaders have craved the West Bank. Few hid their desire to annex it either wholly or in large part.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last week announced plans to annex the West Bank in 2025. There was little pushback in Israel or internationally.

Back in 2019-2020, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last veered down this dangerous path, it was more of a political gambit. He used it to advance normalization with Arab states. It was a condition of the Abraham Accords that Israel suspend its annexation plans, though Netanyahu insisted they were only delayed.

What is different this time around?

The settler movement is today even more firmly established at the heart of Israeli politics. The annexationists are in charge and not just the racist firebrands like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.

The incoming Trump administration is packed full of potential appointees who, if not devoted annexationists, are firmly in the Israel can do no wrong camp. Mike Huckabee, Trump’s choice to be the American ambassador to Israel, has said: “I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria. There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.” He is of course defiantly opposed to any two-state solution.

The settler movement is today even more firmly established at the heart of Israeli politics

Chris Doyle

Watch out for Israeli plans to annex areas of Gaza as well. Given the trajectory of Israeli crimes there, some ministers might be dreaming of devouring all of the Strip. Southern Lebanon might even follow.

But none of this is written in stone. Trump will be keen to reassert his claim as dealmaker-in-chief. He knows a full-scale annexation of the rest of the West Bank is contrary to getting any peace deal. Netanyahu will stake out the maximalist position on territory to make it look like a concession if he only annexes Area C, which constitutes about 60 percent of the territory.

The settlers, in cahoots with the Israeli army, have prepared the ground. The last decade has seen a rise in targeted violence against Palestinians in communities they aim to displace. But nothing has compared to 2024. More than ever, Palestinians live in fear of the unrestrained violence of their illegal neighbors.

The regional war also increases the opportunity for Netanyahu. As Israel is bombing Gaza and Lebanon daily, with regular strikes in Syria and even on Iranian territory, the West Bank segment of the war has been given backwater status in the global media. Yet the future of the West Bank is what fires up Israeli leaders. It is what they see as the historical heartland of Israel. Everything else is secondary.

Would annexation be a disaster? It would have to be annulled if there were to be a Palestinian state. It could lead to the dismantlement of the emaciated, impotent Palestinian Authority and the restoration of direct Israeli control over Palestinians in cities like Ramallah and Nablus.

Ethnic cleansing would accelerate. Settlers enjoy sovereignty as it is, living under Israeli civil law while Palestinians in the West Bank live under martial law. But they want the rural and herding communities corralled into ever more crowded Palestinian cities. Given the asymmetry of this conflict, it would be years or even decades before this could be reversed.

The West Bank is what fires up Israeli leaders. It is what they see as the historical heartland of Israel

Chris Doyle

Others argue that, given annexation has already effectively been in place for years, Israel being in full day-to-day control of the West Bank would force the world to confront the one-state reality.

Annexation would formalize Israel’s system of apartheid, which is at its most intense in the West Bank. Palestinians living under Israeli domination are not going to be given a right to vote. Laws would be decided in a parliament they have no access to. One minister made clear this month that Palestinians would not be allowed voting rights. The privileged position and superior rights of Israeli Jews would be hard to ignore.

It would focus the Palestinian rights movement behind the anti-apartheid struggle. If Israel wants a single-state reality, then the campaign for full equal rights will gather strength. What has long been a hollow piece of public relations — that Israel is a democracy — would be shredded in front of the world. Perpetual occupation and the domination of another people is the antithesis of a democracy.

Even the most boneheaded of bigots might have to concede that controlling the lives of nearly 7 million Palestinians and denying them the vote would end this illusion. Such a system will inevitably fall. It is just a question of when.

Sadly, annexation may not be the most horrific aspect. It will be the mass ethnic cleansing that accompanies it that may go down in history, in Gaza as well as the West Bank. It is hard to see who or what will stop Israel’s criminal juggernaut.

• Chris Doyle is director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding in London. X: @Doylech