Licensed Occupation by Law

The confusion regarding the Israeli government's decision to begin registering large areas of the West Bank as "state property" is not just an intellectual luxury, but rather a reflection of a central political and moral dilemma faced by anyone who still believes that the international system has meaning, that international law has a function, and that international legitimacy has a value that goes beyond texts. The scene, with all its elements, confronts the observer with two bitter choices: either to cautiously welcome any international rejection, even if it comes late and mitigated, or to be immersed in astonishment at a world that watches the crime repeat itself, documented and announced, and then settles for issuing statements of concern.

This decision, at its core, is neither surprising nor exceptional. It is an advanced link in a long line of creeping annexation that Israel has skillfully practiced since 1967. The only difference is that what was previously exercised under "security" or "temporary" titles is now presented as a complete state policy, unashamed of announcing its intentions and seeing no need to justify them. Here, we are not talking about a deviation in behavior, but rather about a solid doctrine that considers the occupied land a legitimate spoils, and international law a formal barrier that can be circumvented with patience and gradualism.

What is astonishing — or scandalous — is not the Israeli behavior itself, but the international environment that has allowed it to become a fixed pattern. The world that claims to defend a rules-based order is the same one that has provided Israel with an unprecedented shield of political and moral immunity. Dozens of international resolutions have been issued, most notably Resolution 2334, all of which have remained toothless. No sanctions, no costs, no price. Thus, Israel has learned a simple and dangerous lesson: the law can be violated as long as punishment is not in the cards.

Some like to distinguish between "official annexation" and "administrative procedures," as if registering land as state property is a technical rather than a political matter. This distinction is not only naive but deliberately misleading. Modern annexation does not require a dramatic announcement or an official speech. It suffices to re-engineer the land, impose a new legal and administrative reality, and confine the original populations within crowded cantons for the announcement to become merely a subsequent detail. This is how empires are managed in the twenty-first century: quietly, with plenty of paperwork and seals.

Since the Oslo Accords, settlement has not been an anomaly in the "peace" process; it has been its real infrastructure. While negotiations were being conducted on the "final status," bulldozers worked tirelessly, new maps were drawn on the ground, resources were confiscated, and villages were separated from their natural surroundings. The Palestinian Authority was kept as an administrative body stripped of sovereignty, while the essence of control remained in the hands of the occupation. Today, the decision regarding "state property" clearly states: what was temporary has ended, and what was a subject of negotiation has been closed.

Perhaps the comparison with Sinai is often used to beautify the picture, but in reality, it confirms the rule rather than negates it. Sinai was not annexed because it entered a different international political equation, which imposed a strategic cost on Israel for annexation. As for the Golan, Israel annexed it when it realized that the cost was nonexistent, and the West Bank is following the same path, but with more cunning tactics and less noise.

The real question that should be raised is not about Israel's intentions, which are now exposed, but about the impotence or complicity of the international community. Why are sanctions imposed on countries that violate international law in certain cases, while the world turns a blind eye when Israel is the violator? Why is the occupation treated as an "manageable conflict" rather than a continuous crime? The painful answer is that double standards are no longer a flaw in the international system but one of its unspoken pillars.

The most dangerous aspect of the decision to register the land is not what it takes from the Palestinians, but what it reveals about the world: a world that has lost political courage, replacing justice with realism, and law with balances. In this context, annexation becomes not a shocking event but a logical result of a system that has chosen silence as a partner, complicity as a political strategy, and waiting as a virtue. When plunder is legalized, defending the right becomes an elitist act... and simultaneously a form of resistance.

Ultimately, the danger of the "state property" decision lies not in the number of dunams being confiscated, but in the philosophy behind it: a philosophy that sees law as a tool in the hands of power, rather than a constraint upon it. And when occupation is managed with seals instead of tanks, and plunder is legalized instead of condemned, the question is not only about the future of the West Bank, but about the fate of an international system that has chosen silence as a partner, legitimacy as a disguise, and annexation as a norm.