Israel, annexation and the West Bank explained
NBC
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is planning to effectively annex parts of the occupied West Bank in what would be a major – and highly controversial – act.
What is the West Bank?
It is a chunk of land located – as the name suggests – on the west bank of the River Jordan and bounded by Israel to the north, west and south. To its east lies Jordan. The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war, but decades of difficult on-off talks between Israel and the Palestinians – both of whom assert rights there – have left its final status unresolved.
What is “annexation” and why does it matter here?
Annexation is the term applied when a state unilaterally proclaims its sovereignty over other territory. It is forbidden by international law. A recent example was Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.
Mr Netanyahu has said the plan is “not annexation”, although it involves applying Israeli sovereignty to the parts of the West Bank which contain Jewish settlements, as well as most of a swathe of land along the West Bank’s boundary with Jordan, known as the Jordan Valley.
The move could result in some 4.5% of Palestinians in the West Bank living in enclaves within annexed territory. Mr Netanyahu has said Israeli sovereignty will not be applied to Palestinians in the Jordan Valley, and reports say the same exclusion will extend to Palestinians in other annexed parts of the West Bank.
The areas earmarked for annexation (the precise contours of which are being mapped by Israel and the US) may comprise about 30% of the West Bank, according to reports. Mr Netanyahu may initially act to annex just the settlements, which could amount to only 3% of the West Bank. The remaining 27% may have to wait until the boundaries are agreed with Washington. However, the Palestinians seek the whole of the West Bank – to which they claim an historical right – for a future independent state, along with the Gaza Strip. Any annexation by Israel, they argue, would leave Palestinian areas fragmented and the Palestinian people with considerably less land for a country of their own. If it’s so controversial, why does Israel want to do it? Israel claims historical and religious rights to the West Bank as the ancestral land of the Jewish people. It also says its presence there – especially in the Jordan Valley – is strategically vital for its self-defence. It says settlements are not an obstacle to peace and that they would remain part of Israel under any peace deal with the Palestinians, whether they are annexed now or not.