They are no longer words, but facts. As of yesterday, a bill is underway to apply Israeli law to , an occupied territory internationally recognized as Palestinian, like Gaza and east Jerusalem. The measure is equivalent to the formal annexation of the largest of the pieces on which Palestine wants to build, one of these centuries, a full-fledged State. In reality, the occupation and the policies that are applied every day in the area already represent a de facto annexation, but now they are seeking to make it official. The measure already has preliminary approval from the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
The vote was the first of four needed to pass the law and coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Israel, a month after President Donald Trump declared that . One of Washington’s few statements contrary to its perpetual ally in Tel Aviv.
Before his departure from the United States to undertake this trip, Secretary of State Marco Rubio recalled on Wednesday that Trump had “made it clear” that the Knesset vote on annexation “was not something we would support.” “We believe that it is even a threat to the peace agreement,” he said, referring to . “We thought it might be counterproductive,” he said.
A statement from the chamber detailed that the bill was approved to “apply the sovereignty of the State of Israel to the territories of Judea and Samaria,” as Israel calls the West Bank. It will now go to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for further deliberation.
The bill was introduced by Avi Maoz, leader of the far-right Noam party, which is not part of the ruling coalition. The Likud party, to which the prime minister belongs, did not support the articles, which were ultimately approved by 25 votes in favor and 24 against, of the 120 total deputies. A second bill, presented by an opposition party and proposing the annexation of the settlement of Maale Adumim (between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, with about 40,000 inhabitants), won by 31 votes in favor and nine against.
Some members of the government coalition, from National Security Minister’s Jewish Power party to Finance Minister’s Religious Zionism faction, voted in favor of the bill. So it has not been a Netanyahu initiative, but the same pillars on which he relies to avoid falling support it and will make it advance in the following stages: its approval will require a long legislative process. “The people have spoken,” Smotrich said clearly in a post on
These members of Netanyahu’s coalition have been asking Israel for years to formally annex parts of the West Bank, a territory with which Israel cites biblical and historical ties, the so-called . A vision that completely clashes with the decision of the United Nations supreme court, which declared in 2024 that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, and its settlements there (with some 700,000 people living in them) are illegal and must be withdrawn as soon as possible.
“Provocation”?
In a statement, however, Bibi’s Likud called the vote “another provocation by the opposition aimed at damaging our relations with the United States.” On the one hand, progress is being made in an occupation that has never bothered him, but rather has deepened. On the other, he tries to stay safe from Washington’s fury. “True sovereignty will not be achieved through a flashy law for the record, but through adequate work on the ground,” the same note states. Nor has he criticized his partners in public.
Still, although most Likud lawmakers abstained or did not show up for the vote, one of its members, Yuli Edelstein, did defy Netanyahu and cast the deciding vote in favor of the bill. “At this very moment, Israeli sovereignty throughout our territory is the order of the day,” he said in a post on X.
Israel argues that the territories it captured in the 1967 war are not legally occupied because they are on disputed lands, but the United Nations and most of the international community clearly consider them occupied territories. Netanyahu’s government had been considering annexation as a response to the recognition of a Palestinian state by several of its Western allies, such as France and the United Kingdom, in September, but appeared to scrap the measure after Trump’s objection. Now, the initiative is not from the Government, but it is advancing equally and with the support of ministers. Annexation of the occupied West Bank would effectively end the possibility of implementing one for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as described in the .
Avalanche of criticism
Netanyahu himself has not been explicit about the annexation, since in 2020 he scrapped a previous electoral promise in favor of normalizing relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, within the framework of the . The United Arab Emirates, the most prominent Arab country to establish ties with Israel under these treaties, negotiated by Trump during his first term, warned as early as last month that the annexation of the West Bank was a red line for the Gulf state. Now we have to wait to see if they take the step of breaking away or hide behind the fact that the process in the Knesset has not yet been completed.
Senior Emirati official Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates, said Wednesday in Abu Dhabi that the Gulf state believed it had avoided annexation.
So far, the votes have drawn swift condemnation from the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, as well as Hamas, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. In a statement, the ministry condemned the vote and said it “firmly rejects the Knesset’s attempts to annex Palestinian lands.” “The occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, constitute a single geographical unit over which Israel has no sovereignty,” it indicates.
for its part, said in a statement that the bills reflected “the ugly face of colonial occupation.” “We affirm that the occupation’s frantic attempts to annex West Bank lands are invalid and illegitimate,” it elaborates.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry similarly condemned the move in the “strongest terms,” calling the vote a “flagrant violation of the historic rights of the Palestinian people and a challenge to international law.”
The state of the matter
Since the Six-Day War, large population blocks have been created in the West Bank, with a profusion of services and natural resources taken from their original owner, cutting off almost any territorial continuity, for example, with the hypothetical capital of the state to come, East Jerusalem. Netanyahu has been the leader who has expanded them the most, but it has always been done, with the right and the left.
Colonization goes far beyond housing, because each city is surrounded by industrial estates and factories, as well as leisure complexes, which extend the occupation, and which have to be accompanied by safe roads for Jews, more military bases and checkpoints that guarantee their safety. Bite after bite that is given to land recognized as Palestinian, for which there is no qualm about demolishing houses or if necessary to house the Jews, usually very religious, and who have subsidies and facilities from the State to settle in these occupied areas.
A Palestinian looks over the West Bank wall, near Nilin, with an Israeli colony in the background.
And then, in the center of that territory, there are different areas, marked as A, B and C, in which the degree of depth of the occupation varies. They are the following:
Area A. The Palestinian Authority has full control over security and civil affairs. It represents 18% of the territory and includes the main cities and the surrounding territories, without settlements. In theory, Israelis are prohibited from entering these areas, although in reality they can enter quite easily. The Israeli Defense Forces often conduct raids to arrest potential militants.
Area B. The Palestinians have civilian control and share military control with the Israelis. It makes up 21% of the territory and includes mainly small Palestinian cities, towns and some land, but no settlements.
Area C. Israel has complete civil and military control. It represents just over 60% of the Palestinian territory and includes all settlements (cities, towns, neighborhoods), lands, all roads that connect the settlements with Israel (exclusive for Israelis), as well as areas defined as a “security zone”, which includes, among others, all the land adjacent to the separation wall. Along with the settlers, some 150,000 Palestinians, most of them Bedouins, live poorly.
