Why Netanyahu’s land grab could backfire
While the world is being distracted by a pandemic, Israel’s most audacious land-grabber is working overtime.
Beginning July 1, in defiance of international law but encouraged by Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to annex perhaps as much as 30 per cent of the occupied West Bank to make permanent the illegal Israeli settlements that he has allowed to develop on Palestinian land.
If implemented, even in a gradual and staged way, it will rock the region and prove to be a provocative challenge to the world community’s oft-stated commitment to an equitable and peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And within Israel itself, it will throw into question the existence of Israel as a predominantly Jewish democracy that, according to the promises of its 1948 Declaration of Independence, “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.”
It is unclear how this will all play out, but the prospects are grim.
Netanyahu’s move appears intended to kill, once and for all, any hope for a “two-state solution” that would lead to the creation of a viable, independent State of Palestine.
It would seem to ensure that thousands of Palestinian residents in these newly annexed territories would be granted neither citizenship nor equal rights.
And as a consequence, it would likely lead to the emergence of a modern-day version of “apartheid” South Africa where institutionalized racial discrimination against Palestinians shapes the future direction of Israeli society.
But like the apartheid policy in South Africa in the 1980s, which collapsed in the face of international pressure, this initiative by Netanyahu’s government has considerable risks.
It could very well ignite a new wave of violence in the West Bank, further undermine Israel’s standing in the world and threaten its relations with its Arab neighbours — particularly Jordan, whose ruler, King Abdullah II, has warned that its country’s peace treaty with Israel would be endangered.
It would also encourage more countries to grant diplomatic recognition to the State of Palestine and provide fresh impetus to those who feel that Israel should face the same kind of sanctions that Russia did when it annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
In one sense, Netanyahu has chosen an odd time to make this move.
It comes as Israel is bracing for the coming of a “second wave” of coronavirus infections and is facing what researchers in the Jerusalem Post describe as “one of the greatest economic crises in its history.”
So, why now, we might ask? What could he be thinking?
The answer to that appears to be found a world away in the grubby political melodrama of U.S. presidential politics.
Netanyahu is afraid this may be his only chance. Four months from now in the U.S. presidential election, Americans will likely be tossing the imploding Trump presidency into the dustbin of history.
And that may spell trouble for Netanyahu and his dreams of expanding Israel’s borders at the expense of the Palestinians.
The likely next U.S. president, Democrat Joe Biden, is certainly no critic of Israel, although he opposes the idea of annexation. But his party is increasingly skeptical of Israel’s recent aggressive actions and there are now prominent party leaders that no longer assume that Israeli and American interests are necessarily the same.
Recent polling suggests that many Americans, including Jewish Americans, are increasingly skeptical of Israel’s complacency toward the U.S. — perhaps best summed up years ago by the Israeli military hero, Moshe Dayan:
“Our American friends offer us money, arms and advice. We take the money, we take the arms and we decline the advice.”
In addition, the pressure will be intensified in Europe and Canada to hold Netanyahu’s Israel to account in the months ahead.
The outrage in Europe is growing, and there appears to be a certainty that sanctions of some sort will be imposed.
In Canada, Justin Trudeau’s government was slow in being critical of Israel over annexation — and was widely attacked for that. Its one-sided soft support of Israel in recent years, at the expense of the Palestinian cause, was seen as one of the reasons Canada lost out in its quest for a UN Security Council seat.
A Canada-wide survey conducted this month by Ekos Research Associates suggests that Canadians are more militant about Israel’s actions than their government. While opposing Israeli annexation by an overwhelming margin (74 per cent), the poll indicates that 42 per cent of Canadians want Canada to impose sanctions against Israel. It was sponsored by Independent Jewish Voices Canada and United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine-Israel.
If we have learned anything in recent decades, it is that these issues cannot be easily resolved.
I remember in 2008, after I had just taken over in Qatar as managing director of al Jazeera’s English-language network, several boxes of embossed “Al Jazeera Daily Journals” arrived in my office. I was encouraged to hand them out to any international guests I had.
I noticed that these “Journals” included several pages of coloured maps — which I thought was clever. Except for one thing. The Middle East map didn’t include any reference to “Israel.”
That part of it was blank. It was apparently felt that until Palestine was formally included in that region’s geography, that part of the map should remain blank.
I respected the feeling behind that decision, but I didn’t share it, so I sent the boxes of “Journals” back.
I remember thinking at the time that Israel’s reality — however flawed its government’s policies may be — cannot disappear just like that.
And in that same spirit, I am certain that the reality of an independent Palestine — regardless of what Netanyahu and Trump try to do — is a chapter in history that will eventually be written.
Tony Burman, formerly head of CBC News and Al Jazeera English, is a freelance contributing foreign affairs columnist for the Star. He is based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyBurman