Details of Israel’s pending illegal annexation of occupied West Bank territory are unclear. Focus has been on Netanyahu, Gantz, regional warnings, Trump, etc.

But whatever transpires, remember: this is *a continuation of, not a rupture with*, decades of colonisation.

THREAD

Annexation has unfolded over a half century of formal & informal moves, big and small, military orders & Knesset legislation, land theft and segregation. The timeline since day one of the military occupation has included *multiple* points of annexation. Here are some examples.

The area known as occupied East Jerusalem was annexed by Israel in 1967. Thus, municipal Jerusalem includes 17,500 acres of the occupied West Bank, 91 percent of which had belonged to 28 villages in the area. Palestinian residents in the annexed area were not given citizenship.

How about Order No. 58 & Order No. 59?

Issued in July 1967, they facilitated transfer of "absentee property" & "enemy civilian property" to Israeli state.

By 1979, Israel had taken ownership, under Order No. 59, of approx 13% of the West Bank [Ophir, Givoni, Hanafi, 2009].

By early 1990s, Israel had registered ownership of "patchwork quilt" of land constituting 38% of West Bank [E Weizman, 2007].

Since 1967, Palestinians have been given only 0.25% of the state land allocated in the West Bank. 2015 saw largest ratification of state land since 2005.

1975 could also be seen as an annexation 'turning point'.

April - Ofra settlement founded (initially as "work camp")

September - Ma'ale Adumim settlement founded

December - Israeli gov't backed Elon Moreh 'pioneers'

Then there are the roads.

Israel began work on the "Trans-Samaria Highway" in the late 1970s. Over the years, dozens of kms have been built, connecting up settlements. Just earlier this month, Reuters reported on the new planned 'American Road'.

Excerpt: https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=8181

Water.

In 1982, Israel ordered that management of the water system in the West Bank be turned over to national water company Mekorot (49-yr lease). "It soon became obvious that Mekorot was developing the water sources primarily for the Jewish settlements” [Schiff, Ya’ari, 1989]

Israeli journalist Amos Elon, February 1983:

"For all practical purposes [the occupied West Bank & Gaza Strip] have already been annexed to the State of Israel, perhaps irrevocably."

In 1983, there were approx. 23,000 settlers in the West Bank. Today there are some 450,000.

And here's just another example, from more recently (2018). "Small" in the grand scheme of things. But remember that in the mid-1970s, Ariel didn't exist. Now it has an official Israeli university and is designed a so-called consensus 'bloc'. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israel-applies-sovereignty-over-ariel-university-in-the-west-bank-542446

For 53 years, from June 1967 to June 2020, this process of colonisation – aka de facto annexation – has proceeded step by step under every single Israeli government.

Land confiscation. Settlements. Outposts. Transport infrastructure. Water. Land usage planning. Legislation.

Key to this process has been strategic framework of temporariness, along w/ incremental & relentless facts on the ground. Formal annexation risks this strategic advantage, stretching temporariness delusion to breaking point. But. Annexation is more continuity than departure. /END