PNN – The Israeli cabinet has recently made decisions to further encroach on Palestinian lands and change their legal nature in order to expand settlement construction and further dominate the West Bank with the aim of completely Judaizing it and annexing this area to other occupied territories, which analysts refer to as an earthquake with severe consequences and consider it necessary to seriously confront them.
The new decisions of the Israeli cabinet, contrary to the Oslo Accords, apply the regime’s laws to Areas (A) and (B) in the Palestinian West Bank. According to the Oslo Accords, the administrative, military, and security management of Areas (A) and the administrative management of Areas (B) are the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority, but the military and security management of Areas (B) is in the hands of the Israeli regime.
Facilitating the purchase of land in the West Bank by Zionist settlers is among other decisions of the Israeli regime, and this situation will change the legal and political status of this region and increasingly weaken the structure and power of the Palestinian Authority.
The Israeli cabinet’s decisions abolish Jordan’s land registration system in the West Bank, which prohibits the sale of Palestinian land to non-Palestinians, and facilitate the purchase and sale of land for settlers.
Until now, property registration in the West Bank has been carried out within the framework of civil administration and based on the Jordanian document registration system, but now, with new surveys conducted based on this Israeli regime plan, all property files will be transferred to this new unit under Zionist supervision in the West Bank.
The goal of this plan is to organize and consolidate ownership of approximately 6,000 hectares of Palestinian land in the West Bank by 2030, which reflects the Zionist regime’s efforts to consolidate its legal and administrative control over these lands.
The issue of transferring land records in the West Bank from the Israeli military’s “Civil Administration,” which operated using land registration procedures established under Jordanian rule before the 1967 occupation, to direct Israeli registration has now been raised. The goal of this plan is to organize and control Tel Aviv over 60,000 dunams (each dunam is equal to one thousand square meters) of West Bank land by 2030.
This step by Tel Aviv marks a new change in the structure of the Israeli regime’s control over the West Bank, and by enabling Zionist settlers to impose new conditions on Palestinian lands through individual ownership; it paves the way for the de facto annexation of large areas of the West Bank to other occupied territories.
In this regard, Jordanian writer and analyst Areeb Al-Rantawi called these decisions by the Israeli regime against the West Bank a major “earthquake” and explained the options facing the PA to deal with it.
He wrote in an analytical article published on the Al Jazeera website: With its recent decisions, Israel is erasing the “illusionary” Oslo plans, nullifying the Hebron Protocol and the Jordanian laws in force in the West Bank, and unleashing the settlement monster to destroy the entire West Bank. With a stroke of the pen, Israel seizes vast areas of Palestinian “state” land, ancient and religious sites, and water resources without any restrictions, turning every Palestinian into a potential “seller” and every settler into a potential “buyer.”
After “executing” the Oslo process and its agreements and annexes (the Hebron Protocol), Israel is deliberately taking steps to “bury” this process with these decisions.
After “grabbing land” and “displacing the Palestinian people,” Israel is moving forward with its new decisions toward “redefining” the duties and roles of the Palestinian Authority.
Ending the idea of an independent, viable Palestinian state in Palestinian lands is another goal of these decisions by the Israeli regime.