JERUSALEM: When Donald Trump presented his 2020 plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it included the Israeli annexation of swathes of the occupied West Bank, a controversial aspiration that has been revived by his reelection.
In his previous stint as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu pushed for partial annexation of the West Bank, but he relented in 2020 under international pressure and following a deal to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates.
With Trump returning to the White House, pro-annexation Israelis are hoping to rekindle the idea.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler in the Palestinian territory, said recently that 2025 would be “the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” referring to the biblical name that Israel uses for the West Bank.
The territory was part of the British colony of Mandatory Palestine, from which Israel was carved during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, with Jordanian forces taking control of the West Bank during the same conflict.
Israel conquered the territory from Amman in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and has occupied it ever since.
Today, many Jews in Israel consider the West Bank part of their historical homeland and reject the idea of a Palestinian state in the territory, with hundreds of thousands having settled in the territory.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and its 200,000 Jewish residents, the West Bank is home to around 490,000 Israelis in settlements considered illegal under international law.
Around three million Palestinians live in the West Bank.
Israel Ganz, head of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization for the municipal councils of West Bank settlements, insisted the status quo could not continue.
“The State of Israel must make a decision,” he said.
Without sovereignty, he added, “no one is responsible for infrastructure, roads, water and electricity.”
“We will do everything in our power to apply Israeli sovereignty, at least over Area C,” he said, referring to territory under sole Israeli administration that covers 60 percent of the West Bank, including the vast majority of Israeli settlements.
Even before taking office, Trump and his incoming administration have made a number of moves that have raised the hopes of pro-annexation Israelis.
The president-elect nominated the pro-settlement Baptist minister Mike Huckabee to be his ambassador to Israel. His nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said this would be “the most pro-Israel administration in American history” and that it would lift US sanctions on settlers.
Eugene Kontorovich of the conservative think thank Misgav Institute pointed out that the Middle East was a very different place to what it was during Trump’s first term.
The war against Hamas in Gaza, Israel’s hammering of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the fall of Syrian president Bashar Assad, all allies of Israel’s arch-foe Iran, have transformed the region.
“October 7 showed the entire world the danger of leaving these (Palestinian) territories’ status in limbo,” Kontorovich said, referring to Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel 15 months ago that sparked the Gaza war.
He said “the war has really turned a large part of the Israeli population away from a two-state solution.”
The two-state solution, which would create an independent Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, has been the basis of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations going back decades.
Even before Trump won November’s US presidential election, NGOs were denouncing what they called a de facto annexation, pointing to a spike in land grabs and an overhaul of the bureaucratic and administrative structures Israel uses to manage the West Bank.
An outright, de jure annexation would be another matter, however.
Israel cannot expropriate private West Bank land at the moment, but “once annexed, Israeli law would allow it. That’s a major change,” said Aviv Tatarsky, from the Israeli anti-settlement organization Ir Amim.
He said that in the event that Israel annexes Area C, Palestinians there would likely not be granted residence permits and the accompanying rights.
The permits, which Palestinians in east Jerusalem received, allow people freedom of movement within Israel and the right to use Israeli courts. West Bank Palestinians can resort to the supreme court, but not lower ones.
Tatarsky said that for Palestinians across the West Bank, annexation would constitute “a nightmare scenario.”
Over 90 percent of them live in areas A and B, under full or partial control of the Palestinian Authority.
But, Tatarsky pointed out, “their daily needs and routine are indissociable from Area C,” the only contiguous portion of the West Bank, where most agricultural lands are and which breaks up areas A and B into hundreds of territorial islets.
Trump comeback restarts Israeli public debate on West Bank annexation
https://arab.news/pvzb4
Trump comeback restarts Israeli public debate on West Bank annexation
- With Trump returning to the White House, pro-annexation Israelis are hoping to rekindle the idea
- Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler in the Palestinian territory, said recently that 2025 would be “the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria“
US military launches strikes in Syria against Daesh fighters after American deaths
- “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says
- President Trump earlier pledged “very serious retaliation” but stressed that Syria was fighting alongside US troops
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration launched military strikes Friday in Syria to “eliminate” Daesh group fighters and weapons sites in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two US troops and an American interpreter almost a week ago.
A US official described it as “a large-scale” strike that hit 70 targets in areas across central Syria that had Daesh (also known as Islamic State or IS) infrastructure and weapons. Another US official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said more strikes should be expected.
The attack was conducted using F-15 Eagle jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters, the officials said. F-16 fighter jets from Jordan and HIMARS rocket artillery also were used, one official said.
“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on social media.
President Donald Trump had pledged “very serious retaliation” after the shooting in the Syrian desert, for which he blamed Daesh. The troops were among hundreds of US troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the terrorist group.
Trump in a social media post said the strikes were targeting Daesh “strongholds.” He reiterated his support for Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who he said was “fully in support” of the US effort to target the militant group.
Trump also offered an all-caps threat, warning the group against attacking US personnel again.
“All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned — YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE USA.,” the president added.
The attack was a major test for the warming ties between the United States and Syria since the ouster of autocratic leader Bashar Assad a year ago. Trump has stressed that Syria was fighting alongside US troops and said Al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack,” which came as the US military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.
Syria’s foreign ministry in a statement on X following the launch of US strikes said that last week’s attack “underscores the urgent necessity of strengthening international cooperation to combat terrorism in all its forms” and that Syria is committed “to fighting Daesh and ensuring that it has no safe havens on Syrian territory and will continue to intensify military operations against it wherever it poses a threat.”
IS has not claimed responsibility for the attack on the US service members, but the group has claimed responsibility for two attacks on Syrian security forces since, one of which killed four Syrian soldiers in Idlib province. The group in its statements described Al-Sharaa’s government and army as “apostates.” While Al-Sharaa once led a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda, he has had a long-running enmity with IS.
Syrian state television reported that the US strikes hit targets in rural areas of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces and in the Jabal Al-Amour area near Palmyra. It said they targeted “weapons storage sites and headquarters used by Daesh as launching points for its operations in the region.”
Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring US service members killed in action.
The guardsmen killed in Syria last Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the US Army. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a US civilian working as an interpreter, was also killed.
The shooting nearly a week ago near the historic city of Palmyra also wounded three other US troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed. The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned because of suspicions that he might be affiliated with Daesh, Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour Al-Din Al-Baba has said.
The man stormed a meeting between US and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.
When asked for further information, the Pentagon referred AP to Hegseth’s social media post.
