‘Great opportunity’ for permanent war: What if Israel annexed the West Bank?
A demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag before Israeli troops in an anti-annexation protest in the West Bank, 5 June 2020
Ramzy Baoud writes in The Palestine Chronicle on 18 December 2024:
Israel is getting ready to annex the occupied Palestinian West Bank. The annexation will be a major step backward on the road to Palestinian freedom and will likely serve as a catalyst for a new Palestinian uprising. Though annexation has been on the Israeli agenda for years, this time around a ‘great opportunity’ – in the words of extremist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – has presented itself and, from an Israeli point of view, cannot be missed.
“I hope we’ll have a great opportunity with the new US administration to create full normalization (of the Israeli occupation),” the minister was quoted as saying by Israeli media. This is not the first time that Smotrich, among other Israeli extremists, has made the connection between Trump’s advent to the White House and the illegal expansion of Israel’s borders.
Two reasons make Israel’s far-right optimistic about Trump’s arrival: One, the Israeli experience during Trump’s first term in office, where the US president allowed Israel to claim sovereignty over illegal settlements, the Syrian Golan Heights, and occupied East Jerusalem; and, two, Trump’s more recent statement in the run-up to the elections.
Israel is “so tiny” on the map, Trump said while addressing the pro-Israeli group ‘Stop Antisemitism’ at an event last August, wondering: “Is there any way of getting more?” The statement, absurd by any definition, caused joy among Israeli politicians, who understood it to be a green right for further annexations.
Israel’s aims for colonial expansion also received a boost in recent days. Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria, Israel immediately began invading large swathes of the country, reaching as far as the Quneitra governorate, less than 20 kilometers away from the capital, Damascus.