More doubts than certainties two weeks before the beginning of the Israeli annexation of the West Bank

With less than two weeks to go before the Israeli Government is due to implement its plan for the annexation of parts of the West Bank, the questions of when, how and in what format it will take place mark the debate and cast doubt on a controversial process of which many details are still unknown. 

Prime Minister Benjamín Netanyahu sees annexation as the main element of his political agenda and reiterates almost daily that he will continue with it, but he has several open fronts to resolve that could put obstacles in the way of activating the plan by the day he himself has set, July 1.

With only 13 days remaining, the head of government has not yet agreed on a joint strategy on the method and extent of the territories to be annexed with his main coalition partner, the head of defence and deputy prime minister, Beny Gantz, who is reticent about taking unilateral steps and is inclined to reduce the land under Israeli jurisdiction. 

Added to this is the slow coordination with the United States, which this January validated the annexation of colonies and the geostrategic Jordan Valley with the presentation of its peace proposal, but also set conditions: any step taken by Israel must be coordinated with the US Administration and the latter must give its approval to a process on which it has not yet given its final blessing. 

Several issues remain pending, one of them being cartography: an Israeli-American committee must design a definitive map with the new limits of the West Bank, a complex procedure that seems to be far from being completed and which is hindered by the lack of consensus within the Israeli Executive, local media report.

The US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has met with Netanyahu and Gantz several times in recent days to bring them closer together, but no progress has been reported. The White House sees the need for consensus so that the annexation - to which Palestinians and much of the international community are opposed - has at least the support of a significant part of the Israeli population. 

The distance between the two is still great and they are far from resolving their differences, the newspaper "Haaretz" said today, citing sources close to Netanyahu. Supporters of the plan fear that if they do not reach an agreement soon, the US government will lose interest and relegate the issue to the background, which would mean letting go of the "momentum" and wasting an opportunity that might not be repeated. 

Gantz - initially opposed to an annexation without coordination with the international community - insists on the need to reach understandings with the Arab countries close to Israel, especially Jordan and Egypt, the only neighbouring states with which the country signed peace agreements that could be in question if the process is carried out unilaterally, without taking all parties into account. 

According to the conservative daily "Israel Hayom", Netanyahu values the option of applying the annexation in two phases: it would begin by incorporating the colonies of the interior of the West Bank - 10% of the territory - to pressure the Palestinians to negotiate, and it would annex in a second phase the blocks of settlements and the Jordan Valley, reaching 30% of the territory that the US plan allows.

This strategy, still in a preliminary phase according to the newspaper, would serve to weather the pressures from different sectors: not annexing the Jordan Valley initially would give Jordan -very reluctant to this step, being that border area-, would show a more moderate profile to Arab countries and moderate groups in the US, and in turn would placate the settler discontent. 

Many settler leaders -with great influence within the Israeli right- are opposed to the annexation in the format proposed by the US, they want a plan that benefits them more and they are pressing to outline a map of the West Bank according to their interests, in which some 19 colonies of their interior are not relegated to enclaves. They have become an unexpected detractor that Netanyahu must also deal with. 

However, at this point the annexation is still a mystery: Netanyahu does not specify his details in public, official sources decline to speak to the media on this subject and it is the leaks, speculations and rumours that mark an unclear debate on a plan that threatens to further destabilise a region marked by decades of conflict.