In order to thwart the Israeli ‘resolution plan’

A few days ago, one of the most prominent Israeli right-wing MKs announced what he claimed to be a “resolution plan” to annex the occupied West Bank to Israel and dissolve the Palestinian National Authority. However, he wasn’t really calling things by their proper names.

The Jewish Home MK, Bezalel Smotrich, announced his project, which stipulates the liquidation of the PA because he believes that two nations with national aspirations for a single land cannot live on the same land.

In his opinion, the solution is to impose the sovereignty of the Israeli occupation on the West Bank, encourage them to migrate, buy their homes for fair prices, dismantle the PA and replace it with four or five local committees. He believes those who reject this should accept war.

The reality of the matter is that this is the policy adopted and implemented by Netanyahu’s government, with slight differences in some details and manifestations to that proposed by the Jewish Home MK. Netanyahu did not hesitate to support this “resolution plan” approved by the National Union Movement (part of the Jewish Home party) and he sent a recorded greeting to the movement’s conference held to discuss and ratify the plan.

The ethnic cleansing (transfer) plans are no longer embarrassing to those who consider them political projects. In this era of moral deterioration within our world’s international politics, the boundaries between what is moral and immoral and what is racist and what is political have disappeared. The Israelis are the pioneers of this pragmatic and very rude approach, in which they see a means to achieve their expansionist interests at the expense of others and a means to gain opportunities to achieve illegitimate gains, as long as resorting to brute force is an option. They mask this approach with meaningless phrases about alleged democracy; the democracy of the conquering coloniser. The rising Israeli leader is stressing that Israel will remain a democratic state, even with the implementation of this plan, and that the Palestinians who will remain will live a good life.

Read: Settlements are Israel’s ‘defensive wall’

Since late 2015, the occupation has restored its work on “civil administration” in the West Bank, which had existed before the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. It is an administration that is run by soldiers, contrary to its name, and its main function, according to Israel, is to “coordinate government activity in the areas”, control and organise the life of Palestinians, and providing them with “services” in a manner quicker than provided by the PA by means of coordinating with the occupation authorities. In this regard, it represents a parallel administration, if not an alternative to the PA, its ministries and institutions. This administration is being expanded and supplied with a large number of employees. The services provided by this administration covers Palestinians and settlers in the West Bank, and basically represents a front for the occupation, as well as a military and settlement presence.

The presence of this administration is considered a shield for the occupation and basically abolishes the remaining obligations stipulated by the Oslo Accords. The PA can do many things to confront this situation, starting with launching a political, diplomatic and media campaign on this occupation administration. They can call for including the cancellation of this administration on the international actions agenda, as well as call on the citizens to boycott this administration. Many analyses indicate that the revival of this administration aims to fill a vacuum in the event that the PA is dissolved based on the calls of the right-wing Netanyahu government.

Something we must look at and focus all of our attention on is the fact that the current government in Tel Aviv is contemplating the dissolution of the Palestinian cause, seize complete control of the entire West Bank, seize the Muslim and Christian sanctities in Jerusalem, and impose settlement expansion on private land owned by Palestinians as well as amiri (Emir’s) land.

Read more: Israel to celebrate ‘return’ to West Bank at major settlement event

This government views the current regional and international circumstances as the ideal circumstances to achieve its objectives, given the abandonment of the Palestinian cause and the settlement efforts. It is also occurring at a time when the killing of civilians, harassing them and displacing them from their areas have become the norm in the Middle East.

The international decision-making organisations in Moscow, Washington and Beijing look at these occurrences with indifference, which makes the calls for ethnic cleansing in the occupied Palestinian territories familiar and commonplace. Meanwhile, all campaigns and efforts are being focused on “Sunni Islamist terrorism” and there is a deliberate neglect of any other terrorism from any other source, especially from the official sources supported and implemented by developed states, such as Israel, which seizes the land of others, violates their sanctities, changes their features and does not hide its intention to seize them. All of this is occurring amid international silence, which reveals the magnitude of the moral vacuum in international politics over the past two decades. Nowadays, the principles of peace, security and stability only concern countries and political governments in the East and the West, and not the nations, especially the vulnerable nations.

As the Palestinian National Authority in Ramallah and the Hamas leadership in Gaza are busy with the so-called efforts to end the division, the occupation is focusing its efforts on swallowing the West Bank, changing its identity, gradually annexing it to Israel, undermining the PA and seizing its privileges and authorities over its people. This requires giving greater priority to stabilising the Palestinian presence in the West Bank, especially given the fact that the Gaza Strip (which is troubled with major problems that have yet to be resolved) is not a part of Israel’s ambitions.

#GazaCrisis 

While facing this challenge, the PA is urged to hold legislative elections in the West Bank in order to fill the legislative vacuum, complete the PA’s institutions and reinforce its political and legal structure. It must also do so in order for the PA not to appear to be merely a service body that provides lacking services that are supplemented by the Israeli civil administration leading to the gradual disintegration of the PA. Legislative elections should be held in the West Bank, while leaving empty seats for the Gaza Strip, but priority should be given to confronting Israel’s keen violation of the national presence in the West Bank. We must take into consideration that the occupation will put obstacles and hindrances in the way of legislative elections, but this fateful political battle deserves to be fought and the legislative elections must be followed by presidential elections. This revives the political community and revitalises public life.

While there are legitimate fears of reinforcing a division between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the greater danger remains eliminating the national presence in the West Bank. I call for confronting this danger with measures that breathe life and vitality back into the political entity, keeping in mind the fact that remedying the division will remain possible once political will is available. However, it is difficult to face the effects of eliminating the national presence once it has passed several levels on the ground and in the occupation’s legislations.

This article first appeared in Arabic in the Palestinian Information Centre on 16 September 2017.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.