The Quiet Annexation of Palestine
Mainstream reporting is consumed with the current “outrage” from nations like Egypt and Jordan over Israel’s decision to approve the registration of vast tracts of West Bank land. This move, facilitated by a decree from Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, essentially legalizes the state's claim over privately owned Palestinian land, marking it as 'state land' and making it available for
Israeli settlement expansion. The framing often centers on political condemnation, as if this were an isolated incident of diplomatic friction. Yet, this is hardly a novel development. Records show that since 1967, Israel has seized approximately 20% of the West Bank using a similar process, designating it as 'state land.' This tactic is directly reminiscent of the 1887 Dawes Act in the United
States, which paved the way for the seizure of nearly two-thirds of Indigenous lands, or the 1948 Nakba in Palestine itself, when 750,000 Palestinians were expelled and over 500 villages destroyed, their lands subsequently repurposed. The pattern is clear: declare land 'ownerless' or 'state-owned,' then distribute it to favored populations. This isn't merely an administrative technicality; it’s a
foundational leg in the institutionalized scaffolding of annexation. The international community, including the State Department which routinely calls Israeli settlements 'obstacles to peace,' rarely extends its rhetoric to the systematic legal mechanisms underpinning them. Imagine if Russia’s annexation of Crimea, condemned universally, was preceded by a 'land registration' process that the UN