Time is running out for the Palestinians, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to start, on July 1, the process of annexing large portions of the occupied West Bank, in particular the Jewish settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley.
A unilateral initiative, perceived in the Palestinian Territories as "an existential threat to [their] future", which would further fragment a fragmented West Bank, and which would seal the end of the two-state solution, to which the United States still clings. Palestinian Authority (PA).
While their room for maneuver seems limited, Palestinian officials seek to mobilize the international community. "It is a matter of putting the Palestinian question on the front page of the international agenda, monopolized by the coronavirus, to thwart Netanyahu's plans," a French diplomatic source told France 24 told France 24, on condition of anonymity.
Israeli plans which follow the logic of the "peace plan" presented by Donald Trump at the end of January, which, in addition to the annexation of the Jordan Valley, also includes the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state on a limited territory and not contiguous, and without East Jerusalem as its capital.
"The PA does not have many options to be heard at a time when the Arab world and the international community are staying away from this issue," summarizes in a column Marwan Muasher, vice-president of the foundation Carnegie for international peace.
"An international coalition against annexation"
It is in this context that the Palestinian diplomatic counter-offensive was launched on Tuesday June 9 by Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh, with the announcement of the transmission of a "counter-proposal" to the American plan for the Near Orient au Quartette composed of the European Union (EU), the United Nations, Russia and the United States, proposing the creation of a "sovereign, independent and demilitarized Palestinian state".
For his part, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Saëb Erakat, said on Tuesday that he had met with representatives of Russia, the European Union (EU) and the UN to discuss the annexation project. He also gave them a letter from PA president Mahmoud Abbas "demanding the formation of an international coalition against annexation and a meeting of all countries that oppose it".
Having broken off, in early February, "all their relations" with Washington, after the announcement of President Donald Trump's "historic" peace plan, and noting that the main Arab powers no longer give primacy to the Palestinian question as in the past , the AP is concentrating its efforts towards Europeans. The EU, Israel's first trading partner, has openly expressed its opposition to the annexation plan, and asked the Israeli government to abandon it.
But the Palestinians ask for more and call on the EU to take "serious and practical" measures to deal with the annexation, by imposing sanctions on the Hebrew State, along the lines of the sanctions imposed on Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. "For the first time, the European political allies are discussing sanctions against Israel," Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said on Tuesday, saying he hoped that "Israel would feel international pressure".
The PA also advocates for EU recognition of the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, to prevent the Netanyahu government from annexing parts of a state sovereign and internationally recognized.
On May 20, French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian had indicated that Europeans were working "for joint action to prevent and possibly respond if by chance this decision to annex was taken". In the Palestinian media, skepticism prevails concerning the chances that the members of an EU, completely sidelined from the Israeli-Palestinian issue by an omnipresent Trump administration, of reaching agreement on a common response and on possible sanctions.
"We know that we should not expect a diplomatic blast from Europeans who are divided on how to deal with Israel, but we are expecting a significant significant gesture like the recognition of Palestine, as this will really allow to complicate the annexation process, "said the aforementioned Palestinian source.
The security card
Not only relying on international pressure to give up the Israeli government, the Palestinians are also trying to put local pressure on the Israeli government. It is for this purpose that President Mahmoud Abbas put his repeatedly repeated threats into effect by announcing on May 20 that he would no longer be bound by the agreements signed with Israel and the United States in protest against the proposed annexation of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Believing that Israel violated international law, as well as all the agreements signed with the PA, he judged that the Palestinians were no longer bound by these agreements, including those relating to security, a sensitive subject in the eyes of Israelis, for whom security cooperation is essential for control over the occupied West Bank.
"There has been no Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation at any level," Prime Minister Mohamed Shtayyeh confirmed at a press conference in Ramallah on Tuesday June 9.
"This strategy is a way of raising the alarm, not only in the direction of Israel, but also of the international community, and of bringing the question of Palestinian rights and occupation back to the fore", Marwan Muasher points out.
In Israel, the media reports that behind the scenes, a number of Israeli security officials, serving or retired, oppose annexation in general, and in particular as a unilateral measure, fearing repercussions on the ground, even a collapse of the Palestinian Authority which would plunge the territory into chaos.
"The Israelis must renounce annexation, this is the condition for cooperation to resume as before. If they go ahead with their project, they will then have to assume in the eyes of the world that they have once again become a power occupying the entire West Bank, "concludes the Palestinian diplomatic source.
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