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A few thoughts on this, if true: https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-israel-has-told-abbas-it-will-limit-annexation-to-2-3-settlement-blocs/
Yes, this is a sign the broad regional & internat’l pressure has impact.
It’s also a sign that the realities of annexing larger swathes of territory are ugly for Israel: complex, costly, & risky.
And Netanyahu’s gotten most of his political benefit fr the fact of US approval.
It’s also a sign that the realities of annexing larger swathes of territory are ugly for Israel: complex, costly, & risky.
And Netanyahu’s gotten most of his political benefit fr the fact of US approval.
Annexing “blocs” that were proposed to remain in Israel under previous negotiations has stronger support in Israel. It would seem to leave more room for talks later to produce a two-state outcome. In raw territorial terms that may be true. But...
Even a limited annexation, obviously, is a clear violation of international law & signed agreements that could put an end to the Oslo structures on the ground (the Palestinian Authority). And thus...
Even a very limited annexation may well kick off the slow slide of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute into a new, more conflictual & more existential phase. That’s because...
Unilateral Israeli annexation, at bottom, is a declaration of intent: we reverse our prior commitment to negotiate this dispute with the Palestinians’ chosen reps, the PLO. Instead, we intend to impose an outcome suiting our preferences on Palestinians, who will be subject to it.
The mutual recognition of Israel & PLO as sole legitimate reps of their peoples, inescapable interlocutors for one another in ending their conflict, was the most enduring & signif achievement of Oslo. Israel now seeks to escape that & determine outcomes alone.
But, as Amos Oz used to say, Israelis & Palestinians are like 2 donkeys tied together in a cart. They can’t go anywhere w/o the other. Their fates are inescapably linked. Israel can annex territory but it won’t resolve any Qs by doing so. Rather, it reopens Qs previously settled.
Reopening the Pandora’s Box of this conflict outside the bounds of a commitment to negotiate outcomes could produce many things. It might not look like a sudden wave of protests or surge of violence or collapse of the PA. It might be a gradual erosion.
But it will be more chaotic, more conflictual, & more existential, with terrible consequences (and almost certainly worse consequences for Palestinians, including more of this): https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/06/24/world/middleeast/24reuters-israel-palestinians-annexation-patients.html?referringSource=articleShare
Bottom line: no one should be breathing a sigh of relief at an annexation limited to a few settlement blocs, except perhaps those Palestinians in places that would have been directly and dramatically affected by something larger.
