By Robert Inlakesh
A Palestinian man burns a protest sign showing the crossed-out faces of (L to R) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump, King Hamad al-Khalifa of Bahrain, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with a caption above in Arabic reading "Palestine is not for sale, no to the conference of shame in Bahrain, the deal of the century will not pass," in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, on June 16, 2019 in protest against Trump's so-called Israeli-Palestinian peace plan
Following the official launch of US President Donald Trump’s self-described ‘deal of the century’, Israel began making strides towards annexing the Jordan Valley, which constitutes 30% of the West Bank, with the move to take the land likely to come in the next few months. But what will this mean for the Palestinians living there and any potential “two-state solution”?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, immediately following the official launch of Trump’s so-called peace plan, began talking about the intention of the Israeli regime to declare its sovereignty over the Jordan Valley, Northern Dead Sea and illegal West Bank settlements. However, this initiative has been temporarily stalled as the United States wishes Israel to see out its current electoral process before this step is taken.
But despite the US seemingly having jurisdiction over Israel’s actions on this annexation process, the idea in and of itself has been an Israeli and hard-line christian Zionist vision for quite some time. Notably, this annexation announcement is far from the first, in fact Netanyahu had been using this promise of land annexation throughout his election campaigns last year, this coming prior to the US approval of the idea in of itself. The reason for adopting the Jordan Valley annexation issue as part of a campaign promise, is beneficial for any Israeli political party and has hence been the position of both major Israeli political Parties, Kahol Lavan and Likud.
Israeli politicians, especially Netanyahu, have been pandering to extremists Jewish settlers as a means of winning votes and showing Israel their sense of ultra-nationalism. Benjamin Netanyahu even visited the city of al-Khalil (or Hebron) in order to meet with religious extremists on the 25th of February, earlier this year, the day which marks the Ibrahimi mosque massacre of almost 30 Palestinians by Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish extremist settler from New York.
But aside from the Israeli far-right vote won by political parties out of their pledge to extremist policies and to support for settlements, what would the annexation of the Northern Dead Sea, Jordan Valley and settlements mean for the future of a potential Palestinian State?
The land which Israel seeks to annex will roughly constitute around half of the West Bank, the illegal apartheid wall - or what Israel’s calls its security barrier - already cuts into and has essentially annexed 10% of the West Bank, disconnecting over 150 Palestinian communities and eating into essential land needed for any two-State solution.
The Jordan Valley and Northern Dead Sea then make up a further 30% of the West Bank and annexing them would mean stealing the most fertile land mass needed for any real State to exist. Because of the Jordan Valley’s undeveloped nature, due to Israel locking around 85% of the area down for closed military zones, it could be used in the future for water extraction, agricultural development programs and social centers. The land in the Jordan Valley is also home to over 70,000 Palestinians, almost all of whom are currently denied permits to build real homes and are confined to living in tents, which are still demolished by the Israeli occupation forces. This population of Palestinians would likely be ethnically cleansed if the land is annexed, despite the fact that Trump has repeatedly claimed that no one will be forced from their homes. In fact, the loophole in language is an interesting one, Israel doesn’t consider tents to be homes and doesn’t recognize the structures and neither will the US. So according to US-Israeli logic, it won’t be removing people from their homes, it will be “re-location” of populations that will occur.
Remaining inside of Palestinian land in the Jordan Valley would also be the communities of illegal Israeli settlers, of which there are roughly 11,000 currently. The settlers now have the permission to farm the lands and sell their products, produced on stolen Palestinians land, to the world. This is all done whilst Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley are prohibited from even having access to water pipelines and are constantly under threat of being displaced.
The largely untouched issue, to do with the annexation proposed, is the permanent confiscation of water resources in the West Bank. Israel has already long ago diverted the Jordan River, in order to steal the water for themselves and away from the Palestinians, leading to environmental destruction in the Jordan Valley and also the drying up of the Northern Dead Sea. On top of this Israel has complete control over the West Bank’s water supplies, with the median amount allowed to Palestinians overall, in the West Bank, falling well below World Health Organization (W.H.O) standards. The illegal Israeli settlers on the other hand enjoy 6 times the amount of water that is granted to Palestinians. The Israelis now steal the water from the primary aquifers and basins, sourcing the water from underneath the Palestinians and then sell a percentage of that water back to the Palestinians whom they steal it from.
If the proposed annexation of land is accepted and there is no significant uprising to prevent the land grab in the West Bank, the Palestinians will not only have to live in isolated bantustans, but also without any ownership of water.
This is currently the case we see in the Gaza Strip, where the Gaza aquifer has been deliberately dried out by the Israelis, due to their drilling of thousands of wells to disrupt the natural flow of water. The Israelis have even damaged the aquifer to such an extent that they have allowed for deliberate seawater intrusion into the aquifer, having an irreversible effect, on top of this Israel also pumps sewage water into that very aquifer. In Gaza, the water is currently 97% unfit for human consumption.
Without fertile land for agricultural projects, without contiguous territories and without water resources, the conclusion could only be that a Palestinians State is impossible. Such is the status of any possible two-state solution if the land annexation proposed will go ahead.
It is now time that the world drop the notion of a two-state solution and begin to talk of Israel as the settler colonial, right wing extremist, regime that it is. The racist regime is completely detestable and it must fall, with the future being one of a one State, where both Israelis and Palestinians can live as complete equals under the majority Arab State of Palestine. One person, one vote from the river to the sea, free from the racist hate which currently occupies Palestine.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and political analyst, who has lived in and reported from the occupied Palestinian West Bank. He has written for publications such as Mint Press, Mondoweiss, MEMO, and various other outlets. specializes in analysis of the Middle East, in particular Palestine-Israel. He also works for Press TV as a European correspondent.
No comments:
Post a Comment