Middle East conflict
Israel resumes West Bank annexation plans
Updated 11/11/2024 – 5:58 p.mReading time: 1 min.
There is certainly no shortage of conflicts in the Middle East at the moment. Israel’s right-wing extremist finance minister does not challenge this. He announces what many have long feared.
Israel’s right-wing extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wants to annex parts of the Palestinian West Bank. He has instructed the settlement department in the Defense Ministry and the civil administration to prepare the necessary infrastructure for such a step next year, the Jerusalem Post newspaper reported.
Smotrich follows up on plans suspended in 2020 to annex the Israeli settlement blocs and thus around 30 percent of the West Bank, which has been occupied since 1967, but which the Palestinians claim for their desired state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel’s Western allies have also been promoting the two-state solution as a lasting peace solution for decades.
The annexation plans were not pursued further during US President Donald Trump’s first term in office because of the Abraham Accords. The agreements are treaties to normalize Israel’s relations with Arab countries. “The time has come to exercise sovereignty over the West Bank,” said Smotrich in view of Trump’s election victory, who made many concessions to Israel in his first term in office, such as recognizing the annexation of the Golan Heights.
