Americans must stop Israel annexing the West Bank
When President Joe Biden went to Israel shortly after Hamas’s murderous attack of Oct. 7, he not only pledged that any hostile strike against Israel would have to go through the American military, he also reaffirmed the longstanding commitment of the American government to a twostate solution.
The military pledge proved crucial to Israel. That pledge was tested in drone and cruise missile attacks on Israel and American military bases. Those attacks were mostly repulsed. The pledge has helped deter Iran and others and has left Israel free to pursue its just war of self-defense against Hamas.
But the two-state pledge proved as empty as it has proven in the past.
An empty pledge
Israel has felt free to continue its campaign of oppression, violence, destruction and appropriation against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank that is aimed at preventing any possibility of a future Palestinian State.
The American government has no real influence on Israeli policy on the West Bank. The reason for this is that the military guarantee must be absolute to be effective. No American government of either political party is going to stand by while Israel’s existence is threatened. This is as it ought to be. But it means that Israel knows there will be no consequence to ignoring Biden’s call for an end to illegal settlements and Palestinian land seizures that constitute the creeping annexation of the West Bank.
Therefore, if the creeping annexation is to be stopped, you and I, ordinary American citizens will have to stop it.
Americans are vaguely aware of the injustices to which Palestinians are subject to daily under Israeli occupation. But Americans are not aware that the constant expansion of Israeli settlements and the seizure and destruction of Palestinian property — even the removal of whole villages — is practically official government policy. At a certain point, there will be no continuous Palestinian presence in the West Bank from which a viable state can be created.
The creeping annexation is not the result of legitimate security concerns. The current Israeli policy is to tolerate the expansion of settlements, overlook violence and harassment against Palestinians and then further encroach on Palestinian property and movement in order to create ever larger security zones protecting the Israeli presence. That is how the creeping annexation works.
The dream of annexation by important elements of the Israeli government is a religiously-fueled fantasy. It would require either the expulsion of almost three million Palestinians or indefinite military occupation. It would ensure endless future war. Only a two-state solution can bring peace.
Americans may wonder if the treatment of Palestinians by Israel is really our concern. Now that we know American soldiers will be shot at until there is peace, everything relating to peace is our business.
What Americans can do
What can ordinary Americans do? We can attend to, and publicize, the endless acts of injustice to which Palestinians are subject every day. We can refuse the religious cover of calling occupied territory by biblical terms. Calling the West Bank “Judea” and “Samaria” implies that Israel has a right to that territory.
We can financially support groups that try to stop the worst of the violence against Palestinians and try to build joint civil society in the West Bank — groups like Shorashim/Judur/Roots: A Local Palestinian Israeli Initiative for Understanding, Nonviolence and Transformation.
Finally, if all else fails, we can take the radical step of joining the boycott against products from the settlements until there is an end to further appropriations of Palestinian land.
Opposition to the creeping annexation is not an effort to force Israel into an immediate peace agreement. In light of Hamas’s barbarism, how could Israelis accept a Palestinian state now? The point of stopping the expansion of settlements is to keep open the future possibility of a Palestinian state. That is all.
Nor is opposition to the creeping annexation a criticism of Israel’s war against Hamas. Any country will act in self-defense. Hamas did not attack civilians in support of a two-state solution. Hamas wants perpetual war and an end to Israel.
In Gaza, Israel is acting justly. Not so in the West Bank. There Israel is an oppressor.
West Bank could be free
If Israel wanted a two-state solution in the future, life in the West Bank would be as free as Israel could make it. Granted, the main responsibility for building a prosperous and democratic society that genuinely wants peace with Israel lies with the Palestinians. But current Israeli policy makes that achievement harder rather than easier to attain. That only fuels future war.
The first step to a future peace is to stop stealing Palestinian land. The creeping annexation has to be stopped for the sake of Palestinians, Israelis and Americans. We will have to act to stop it. You and me.
Bruce Ledewitz, a professor of law at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University, is author of “The Universe Is on Our Side: Restoring Faith in American Public Life.”