Between Trump’s rejection and the Netanyahu government’s plans.. What are the scenarios for annexing the West Bank? | policy

The occupied West Bank is facing an accelerating field reality that threatens to undermine any horizon for establishing an independent Palestinian state, at a time when international attention is turning to the “fragile” ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli right-wing government continues to impose its control over the Palestinian territories through settlement expansion, “institutional empowerment,” and swallowing up the remaining geographical areas, in a scene that reveals a different kind of war taking place far from the headlines.

This reality raises crucial questions about the extent to which the administration of US President Donald Trump is able to actually oblige Israel to stop the Israeli plan to annex lands, just as it obligated it to cease fire in Gaza.

Also, if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – wanted by the International Criminal Court – and his right-wing government coalition will move towards more gradual annexation of lands without an official announcement, and to what extent can the international community invest in the increasing global recognition of the Palestinian state to push towards a real settlement according to the two-state solution.

The “Scenarios” program reviewed these questions with its guests to anticipate the future of the West Bank in light of the current challenges.

The numbers reveal an accelerating pace of Israeli settlement, as the number of settlements has now exceeded 200 settlements, and the number of settlement outposts has increased to 220.

The number of settlers exceeds 700 thousand settlers, while the settlements effectively control about 9.5% of the total area.

Knesset member and head of the Arab Front for Change list, Ayman Odeh, believes that the suspicious silence of the Israeli Ministers of Finance and National Security, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, regarding Trump’s plan hides undeclared understandings.

Odeh points out that the actual annexation is continuing on the ground through 1,350 checkpoints and the approval of the construction of 30,000 settlement units, in addition to a complete economic blockade that has prevented Palestinian Authority employees from receiving their full salaries for two years.

In turn, the researcher specializing in Middle East affairs, Royan Paul, explains that Trump’s position is sufficient to stop official annexation, but it is not so to prevent the establishment of new settlements or what is called “de facto annexation.”

According to Paul, Israel imposes “civil rule” on these settlements and administers them on the basis that they are part of Israel even though they are not included on official maps.

No to impose sovereignty

Former Palestinian Minister Ali Al-Jarbawi believes that Trump did not present any real political horizon when he refused to annex the lands, noting that the American president said no to imposing Israeli sovereignty, but he did not prevent the continuation of the actual annexation.

Al-Jarbawi suggested that this was the undeclared trade-off between stopping the Gaza war and allowing the gradual annexation of the West Bank to continue.

As for Odeh, he believes that the Israeli-American relationship has witnessed complete dependence on Washington during the past two years, especially with the global bias towards the Palestinian issue and the rise of the Republican far right.

According to the spokesman, “Trump has become the de facto president of Israel and Israeli officials are merely his assistants,” pointing out that the United States links Israel’s loyalty to it with preserving the Jewish majority within it.

Paul warns that Israel will seek to impose a reality: not a full Palestinian state but a local authority that runs daily affairs without real political rights, an unstable formula that will guarantee the emergence of more violence in the future.

The spokesman expected “relaxation in the relationship between America and Israel during the next ten years.”

As for Al-Jarbawi, he concluded that the Palestinian state, if it is established in the future, will be centered in the Gaza Strip, with the remains of the West Bank attached to it, and not vice versa, considering that abandoning the two-state solution may be the realistic path given the impossibility of achieving it on the ground.

In turn, Odeh asserts that the people of the West Bank are a school of steadfastness, and that “the current exceptional circumstances are temporary until the current Israeli government overturns.”