Unilateral West Bank Annexation by Israel: A Hazardous Voyage

By: Gilead Sher, Daniel Cohen

The two-state-for-two-people vision for Israel and Palestine has long been proposed as a partition of the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea into two nation-states: Israel, on roughly 78% of the land, and a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, comprising 22% of the land.1 Today, this vision seems increasingly distant, as the way forward has become muddled by incremental de facto Israeli annexation in the West Bank, outbreaks of Palestinian terror and violence, and a complete breakdown of trust on both sides. Yet a two-state reality is essential for attaining a democratic Jewish national home in Eretz Yisrael2 within secure and recognized boundaries. The Zionist enterprise never endeavored to rule over another people, let alone for more than half a century.

More than ever, drawing a border between two nation-states, even a provisional one, is an urgent priority—especially for reserving the progress of the Oslo negotiations. The Oslo process resulted in two significant milestones: mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993 (the Oslo I Accord), and an interim self government agreement signed in 1995 (the Oslo II Accord) that established the Palestinian Authority and the division of the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C. The Tel Aviv Institute for National Security Studies has a comprehensive political and military plan for embarking toward a reality of two distinct political entities. Among other things, it suggests drawing a provisional border that would encompass the large blocks of settlements comprising ~75% of settlers without annexing any West Bank territory until a final agreement is attained. 

Rather than moving toward a twostate vision, however, recent legislative efforts and public discourse in Israel have increasingly trended toward unilateral annexation of West Bank territory. West Bank annexation threatens a dangerous Israeli decline into a disastrous reality of one state, which will either comprise a nonJewish majority or will be non-democratic and lacking equality between its inhabitants; it would perpetually be on the verge of civil war. Such a process will have pernicious and lasting consequences, leading Israel to an unprecedented crisis of delegitimization, enhanced demonization, and isolation. 

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