The New York Times: The annexation of the West Bank is a brazen violation of international law

The New York Times: The annexation of the West Bank is a brazen violation of international law

The New York Times published an editorial today, Monday / June 1, 2020 under the title "The annexation of the West Bank is a shameless violation of international law," starting with saying that "after he survived a year-long political conflict" He needed three national elections to overcome, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he would start on the first of next July the process of annexing the Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, as he pledged in his campaign.

The newspaper explains that "although the settlements have expanded steadily for decades, and the Jordan Valley is in fact under Israeli military control, there are many reasons why actual annexation is a bad idea, and the main reason for this is that international organizations, and most countries The world considers the West Bank occupied lands, and Jewish settlements are illegal under the Geneva Convention, but Israel considers that the Geneva Convention is not applicable in this case, because there is no Palestinian state in the West Bank, and that no settlers have been transferred / transferred or transferred to the area , As the agreement states. "

"However, the United Nations and all major countries will condemn the annexation process as illegal, except for the United States. In general, previous US administrations have avoided taking a position on the legitimacy of settlements, preferring to call it an obstacle to peace", and insisting that the issue should To be dissolved in the context of a peace settlement, but last November, the Donald Trump administration declared openly that the United States does not consider the settlements in conflict with international law, giving the Israeli (right-wing) Israelis the administration´s support. "

The newspaper notes that "while the Trump administration is giving its blessing to the annexation step, Joe Biden, the potential Democratic candidate to confront Trump, has announced that he will cancel this position if he is elected president."

The newspaper predicts that "the annexation will transform the West Bank into a group of disaffected and unstable areas, which will threaten the outbreak of a new intifada, as it will weaken Israel´s support within the Democratic Party and among American youth, and may destabilize Jordan, the country in which the Palestinians constitute the majority, and could strain Israel´s new relations with the Sunni Arab states, and it could end the remaining security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. "

"There is no doubt that Netanyahu believes that his reasons for annexation outweigh these risks. Throughout his tenure as Prime Minister, he expanded Jewish settlement in the West Bank, and the areas he will now annex, including the Jordan Valley, have become an integral part of Israel in all of Something, except for the name. Netanyahu may think that expanding the Jewish state in the biblical Hebrew lands in “Judea and Samaria” will be his legacy, and the new basis for any future negotiations. Netanyahu is well aware that the Trump administration, which has given him and the Israeli right-wing all their demands, provides a special opportunity to expand Israeli sovereignty with American approval. "

"On the more complicated political level, where Netanyahu is advancing, the annexation will strengthen support for the Israeli right, and he will appear as a Jewish hero when he appears in court in July to face charges of corruption," she said.

"Trump has his own considerations, one of which relates to the evangelical evangelical oath, which enthusiastically supports Israeli expansion, for reasons of his own, and this constitutes an important part of the president´s calculations to win a new term," the newspaper explains.

The newspaper believes that the Trump administration "has a special interest in slowing the Netanyahu rush, and this is the peace plan presented by Trump´s son-in-law Jared Kushner last January, and it is a unilateral plan that basically gives Israel all the lands that Netanyahu wants to annex, and the Palestinians rejected it." Those who had no role in shaping it, because the plan provides a vision based on achieving Israeli expansion in the context of a peace agreement whereby the Palestinians receive a great deal of financial assistance, and they promised to create roads linking their communities.

At the end of its editorial, the newspaper expressed its belief that “this Israeli move will be unilateral, and it will be embarrassingly rejected by Trump’s boast that he has the key to peace. If Netanyahu really thinks about his legacy, he must realize that Trump may not be president next year, and he will have seized On lands where no one recognizes his entitlement to it, not even Israel´s closest and most important friend. "