Israeli lawmaker urges annexation of West Bank till Palestinian ‘Mandela’ arrives

A veteran Israeli lawmaker has announced his support for the annexation of the settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank, which Palestinians want as part of their future independent state.

Eitan Cabel, a Knesset member representing the Israeli Labor Party, announced over the weekend that he supports applying Israeli law to the West Bank settlement blocs.

Cabel wrote in Israel’s newspaper Haaretz that the “Oslo paradigm” had failed and that a new pragmatic approach was needed. 

The Oslo Accords were signed between the Israeli regime and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) during the early-mid 1990s to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and guarantee the Palestinians’ right of self determination.

According to Cabel, Israel should freeze construction outside the settlement blocs to show Palestinians which areas are open to negotiations until both Israel and the Palestinians have what he called “a Nelson Mandela."

"My ideas come from my fear that Israel will become a binational state while there is no one on the other side that can or wants to talk to us. Every day that passes makes the situation harder to solve,” The Jerusalem Post on Monday quoted Cabel as saying.

Cabel said he plans to push his initiative in a "nationwide" campaign, including in the West Bank.

The Labor Party had endorsed a stance supporting the so-called two-state solution at a recent party convention under Avi Gabbay’s leadership. But an ideological forum in the party led by former MK Michael Bar-Zohar officially renounced support for a Palestinian state over the weekend.

The forum urged Tel Aviv to annex large settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley, set a border, and give the rest of the West Bank to the Palestinians to either declare a state or be annexed into Jordan.

“The gap between the stances of the Israelis and Palestinians is wide, so it does not appear that any possible Israeli government, even a center-left government, can bridge the gaps,” it said in its decision.

“We need a solution that does not depend on the Palestinians. If an agreed solution is not reached soon, Israel must act independently.”

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of their future independent state, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital, while the Israeli occupiers of Palestinian territories deem the West Bank as “liberated land,” saying formal annexation is only a matter of time.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

US President Donald Trump on December 6 formally recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as the so-called capital of Israel.

Trump’s declaration prompted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to formally declare that Palestinians would no longer accept the US as a mediator to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as Washington was “completely biased” towards Tel Aviv.

The US president also proposed to establish a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty over around half of the West Bank and Abu Dis east of Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital, an Israeli intelligence website reported on May 20. 

Trump was preparing to reveal the "peace" plan after the end of the holy month of Ramadan in mid-June, the report said.

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