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Palestinians wait to cross Qalandiya checkpoint on their way from the occupied West Bank to Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem, to take part in Friday prayers during Ramadan, April 29, 2022. (Oren Ziv). Published by 972Mag
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A new report examines how, according to Adalah Legal Director Suhad Bishara, Israel is expanding Jewish territorial, spatial, and political supremacy.

by Orly Noy for 972Mag in partnership with Local Call
June 29, 2023

This month, Adalah — The Legal Center for the Rights of the Arab Minority in Israel published a position paper that takes an in-depth look at the steps the Israeli government is taking to try and accelerate the annexation of the occupied West Bank. The paper divides these steps into three main categories: institutional changes and the transfer of areas of action to government offices; legalizing of outposts and expansion of existing settlements; and the direct application of Israeli law in the occupied territories.

The position paper concludes that the Israeli government “openly works to expand the regime of Jewish supremacy beyond the Green Line, and to deepen and perpetuate in the West Bank the apartheid mechanisms it has established there for generations to come.” It further calls for immediate and urgent action by international bodies — including the International Criminal Court, which has launched an investigation into suspected war crimes by Israel, and the International Court of Justice, which is holding proceedings to examine the legal consequences of Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank.

“It is true that this has been an ongoing policy for decades,” according to Dr. Suhad Bishara, the director of Adalah’s legal unit and of its land, planning, and construction department. “At the beginning of the 1967 occupation, there were discussions about the status of the territories and what would be done with them, but soon after, Israel’s policies became much clearer in terms of what was happening on the ground as well as its territorial ambitions in the occupied territories, and [it became] more careful in terms of how it framed those ambitions.

“In the 1970s and ’80s, we see in the legal rulings a discourse surrounding security needs, including when it comes to settlements. But later on, things became much clearer in terms of Israel’s demographic and territorial ambitions. Therefore, it cannot be said that this government is bringing something new, but rather is accelerating [already existing] processes. The moves it has made so far, in a period of less than six months, along with those that are on the agenda, indicate a desire to change things before something changes politically. These are steps we have not seen before.

“Until now, successive governments have operated on the fine line between Israel’s distorted reading of international law — and this includes the Supreme Court — and the perception of the occupied territories as an area in which Israel has a political interest, in the form of annexation in one way or another. The current government is no longer interested in that fine line, which in the eyes of many is illusory and does not really exist, since they have been talking about practical annexation for many years. This government wants explicit annexation moves.”

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Read full article in English here

This article was originally published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.