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The Reality of Annexation in Right-Wing Discourse--The Case of Ribonut (Sovereignty)
Abstract
Since 1967 there has been no formal and explicit act of official annexation of lands under Israel’s control beyond the Green Line. This includes, contrary to popular belief, the Golan Heights and expanded East Jerusalem. The Basic Laws passed concerning those territories neither declare Israeli sovereignty over them, nor declare them as officially joined to the State of Israel. Instead, the one-state reality of rule (effective or not, democratic or not) by Israeli governments of all the land and people between the river and the sea has been accomplished by what has traditionally been referred to as “de facto annexation.” But after more than half a century of this gradually consolidating condition, anomalies arise in the status of the one in eleven Israelis who live beyond the Green Line. Difficulties, contradictions, and confusions also emerge between ordinary practices and understandings and the ideological commitments of those who have always favored Israel’s permanent rule of the whole land. In this context, campaigns to formally annex or declare or impose Israeli sovereignty over lands occupied in 1967 have intensified. Unlike diehard two-state solution supporters, or those who prefer an ambiguous status quo to struggles over whether a “Jewish state” encompassing a majority of non-Jews can be a democracy, those advocating formal annexation must and do discuss exactly how that should be done, what its implications will be or could be for Palestinian Arabs and others in annexed territories, and how and why the challenges associated with annexation could be met. The journal Ribonut (Sovereignty) was founded in 2013 by Women in Green and other far-right settler activists as a vehicle for advancing the cause of official annexation and the formal imposition of Israeli sovereignty over the whole Land of Israel, but in particular over Judea and Samaria/the West Bank. Based on a careful reading of all issues of the journal published since its founding, this paper will analyze positions within the annexationist camp regarding exactly what would be entailed by official annexation or the imposition of sovereignty, why it is necessary, what problems it will solve, what problems it will produce, and, in particular, how its implementation would change the status of Arab inhabitants, both in the short run and the long run.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Israel
Sub Area
None