[New post] Annexation apologists’ most misleading claims – and how to debunk them | Opinion
03-07-20 01:59:00,
Wednesday was supposed to be a historic moment for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the settler right – the first major shift in the geopolitical status quo since the Oslo Accords and the first time Israel has formally annexed land since 1967.
The fireworks haven’t gone off yet, and the celebrations are being downgraded. The likelihood that annexation will mean a far-reaching and magnificent extension of Israeli sovereignty over Greater Israel now seems increasingly unlikely, thanks to contentious domestic coalition politics.
But we can’t confuse this resizing of the annexation plan with it fizzling out altogether. In fact, the excuses, “compromises” and delays are aimed at softening our vigilance, diffusing our voices, weakening our resistance, making us think that maybe it’s not so bad, or maybe that annexation won’t even happen.
Benjamin Netanyahu knows this game of distraction and delay incredibly well, finding ways to turn the unfathomable and indigestible into something we can swallow with a slight grimace. We can’t let him win that game; we must instead proactively debunk the misleading justifications that he and his allies will continue to roll out over the coming days, or weeks, with facts.
First, Netanyahu and his supporters are likely to claim annexation is “just declarative.” It’s a bureaucratic matter, they will explain – a declaration of Israeli law, not of sovereignty, so it’s purely procedural. However, de jure annexation is, by definition, declarative. What is “just words” has legal force and, in the years to come, could lead to Palestinians losing their homes and land, while concurrently aiding settlement expansion.
The Israeli government has already tried this trick of hiding behind “bureaucracy”: in 1967, Israel annexed East Jerusalem, claiming it was only the application of law and was for the purpose of “municipal fusion.” But the application of law and of sovereignty are, for all practical purposes, the same.
This is clear enough from the case of East Jerusalem, where the implications of annexation have been severe. We must assert that unilateral annexation, no matter what language is used, will have real consequences on the ground.
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