Date: 12 July, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had announced that the formal annexation of 30 per cent of the West Bank by Israel would take place on July 1.\u00a0 However, this did not happen on that date though Netanyahu maintained the preparations for the annexation are on.\u00a0 The illegal annexation move emanated from the notorious \u201cPeace to Prosperity\u201d plan announced by President Trump on January 28 this year, with the Israeli prime minister beside him.\u00a0 This atrocious plan amounts to the Jordan Valley of the West Bank and the lands on which the illegal Jewish settlements exist being annexed to Israel.\u00a0 The plan also denies East Jerusalem being given to the Palestinian State as its capital and provides for some place outside Jerusalem as the alternative.\u00a0 If this plan is put into operation, it will spell the end of any prospects for the Palestinian State and would be the final nail in the coffin of the two-state solution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Palestinians were not part of the negotiations for\nthis one-sided agreement, which was engineered by Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared\nKushner, a committed Zionist. The\nPalestinian leadership had rejected the plan outright and declared that the\nPalestinian people would never accept such subjugation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The brazen support for Israeli expansionism got a boost\nwhen Trump had earlier recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and\nshifted the US Embassy there. Since\nthen, Netanyahu has been talking of annexing a major part of the West Bank and\nencouraging the expansion of the illegal Jewish settlements on occupied\nterritories. Under the new plan, though the land would be absorbed into Israel,\nthe Palestinian population living in these areas would not acquire the rights\nof being citizens of Israel. They would\nbe condemned to live as subjects or as second class citizens. The 23 per cent land owned by them in these\nareas would be open to be appropriated by the State. This would convert Israel into a full-fledged\napartheid State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The annexation plan was met with worldwide opposition and\ninternational disapproval. The United\nNation\u2019s Secretary General declared that any step of annexation would be\nillegal and contrary to international law. \nAll the major European countries \u2013 Germany, France and UK \u2013 went on\nrecord against annexation of the West Bank. So have Russia and China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, there is a glaring exception. India, which is to assume a non-permanent\nseat in the UN Security Council, did not come out opposing the annexation. On the contrary, when the plan was announced\nby Trump on January 28, the spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs\nresponded by stating: \u201cWe urge the parties to engage with each other, including\non the recent proposals put forward by the United States, and find an\nacceptable two-State solution\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To ask Palestinians to consider a plan for their self-liquidation\nshows the degree to which India\u2019s foreign policy has turned. Under the current stewardship, foreign policy\nhas become synonymous to aligning with US policy on all vital matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reason why Netanyahu did not proceed with the formal\nannexation could be because of the domestic political situation. Netanyahu is heading a unity government with\nthe other main political party leader, Benny Gantz. As per the deal arrived at, Gantz is to\nbecome the Prime Minister mid-term. As\nthe Deputy Prime Minister, Gantz opined that July 1 was not a sacred day for\nannexation. It should be delayed to concentrate on the fight against the\npandemic. The other factor which\nNetanyahu could have kept in mind was the future of the American\nPresidency. Netanyahu is completely\nreliant on Trump to push through his illegal project. With the poll ratings showing Trump falling\nbehind in the Presidential race, Netanyahu may have decided to play safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though there has been no formal annexation, the situation on the ground is that step by step, the Palestinians are being further squeezed out of their lands and properties.\u00a0 Farmers\u2019 lands are being usurped to pave roads from settlements. Land theft is going on with settler raids supported by Israeli soldiers; old olive trees are being cut down.\u00a0 Under the cover of the pandemic and the lockdown, dispossession and seizures are taking place. Many of the Arab states are allied to the United States and they pay lip service to the Palestinian cause without\u00a0 taking any effective steps to support them.\u00a0 It is only the worldwide solidarity movements with Palestine and the anti-imperialist forces who are extending\u00a0 support to the Palestinian people in these dire times.\u00a0 In India too, the democratic and secular forces should strengthen their bonds of solidarity with the Palestinian people and demand that the Modi government reverse its pro-US-Israeli stance on Palestine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Published in Peoples Democracy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Date: 12 July, 2020 The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had announced that the formal annexation of 30 per cent<\/p>","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":2205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,4,6],"tags":[43,526,138,525],"class_list":["post-9022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fact-figures","category-home-banner","category-press-release","tag-cpim","tag-palestine","tag-us-imperialism","tag-zionism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpimwb.glohtesting.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpimwb.glohtesting.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpimwb.glohtesting.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpimwb.glohtesting.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpimwb.glohtesting.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9022"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cpimwb.glohtesting.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9024,"href":"https:\/\/cpimwb.glohtesting.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9022\/revisions\/9024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpimwb.glohtesting.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpimwb.glohtesting.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpimwb.glohtesting.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpimwb.glohtesting.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}