American Zionism is crumbling before our eyes. 500 alums of US youth Zionist group Habonim Dror call on leaders to cut ties with Israel over annexation. Kibosh on the kibbutz! But Habonim leaders are rejecting the advice, just as J Street leaders dismissed their youth branch alumni’s demands.
Danny Danon says he represents all Jews, not just Israel, at the United Nations. And the Bible gives the Jews rights to the West Bank. “We do have biblical rights to the land. This is our deed to the land. That’s biblical.”
If Israel were to annex 30 percent of the West Bank, as envisaged in the US administration’s “deal of the century”, and the international community were to accept this step, it would indeed be the biggest breach of international law since World War II. It would set a precedent that would shake the international legal order. Palestinians in annexed enclaves would have the status of illegal aliens, Michael Sfard says.
Artists are responding to Israel’s annexation threat by producing posters in solidarity with Palestine. Here is a collection of 20 images from protests around the world curated by the Palestine Poster Project Archives.
Liberal Zionists should be ashamed of arguments against Israeli annexation — calls for a “strong Jewish majority”, or for “separation” from Palestinians — that echo Jim Crow slogans of yesteryear. And yet J Street and Americans for Peace Now and Israel Policy Forum routinely platform speakers who make such appeals.
The PA has lost its trust within the Palestinian community, and the international community is either silent with regards to annexation or complicit. The best chance to stop annexation is through opposition from within Israel led by the Joint List, which can truly bring it to a halt.
12 Senate Democrats have introduced legislation that would prohibit Israel from using U.S. military aid to annex portions of the West Bank.
Annexation will require that Israel update, change, adapt, or reaffirm decrees, laws, and military orders that have governed how the occupying power administers the territory and its inhabitants. Jonathan Kuttab discusses how these changes will impact the legal status of Israeli settlers, and the Palestinians that live in the areas that are annexed.
European opposition to Israeli annexation plans mean nothing to Trump or Israel because Europe hasn’t articulated “a single concrete sanction,” says Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. And Democratic opposition to annexation is just as “soft,” she says, and therefore if you hope that annexation can be turned back, “hope would be deeply, deeply misplaced.”
Ex-Presidents Dilma Rousseff, Lula da Silva, Evo Morales, José Mujica, Rafael Correa among 320 public figures supporting Palestinian call for sanctions to stop Israel’s annexation and apartheid.