Palestine in front of Balfour and Trump's promises!

Just as British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour promised the Zionist movement 107 years ago to establish a homeland for the Jews in Palestine, Israel is now seeking a similar promise from US President Donald Trump to recognize its annexation of the West Bank, thus completing the occupation of Palestine from the river to the sea. During the 31 years between the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and the declaration of the establishment of Israel in 1948, Palestine under British colonialism witnessed waves of Jewish immigration to it from different parts of the world, and the Palestinian national movement was unable to stop them, and thus prevent the Nakba from occurring, but it failed due to the strength of the Zionist movement supported financially, politically and militarily by the colonial powers, and due to the limited capabilities of the Palestinian national movement, and its reliance on Arab regimes that were in the orbit of the colonial powers at the time.

During his first term in office, about 100 years after the Balfour Declaration, President Trump announced his plan, known in the media as the “Deal of the Century,” which included US recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the West Bank, but that did not happen at the time.

The issue was raised again during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held in Washington on February 20, 2025, with Donald Trump in attendance. Although the conference did not recommend recognizing the annexation of the West Bank by Israel, it did adopt a resolution calling the West Bank “Judea and Samaria,” a resolution that the leader of the Israeli settler organizations in the Palestinian territories (Israel Gantz) likened to the Balfour Declaration. The conference’s decision to replace the name of the West Bank with its biblical name comes after a similar resolution was issued by the Israeli Knesset.

There is every reason to assume that the Trump administration will recognize Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, based on the fact that Trump, in his first term, recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights and moved its embassy to Jerusalem, which means that the United States recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the eastern part of the city. Trump may respond to Israel’s demand to recognize its annexation of the West Bank, given that Trump’s largest donor in his election campaign is Israeli billionaire Miriam Adelson, who had expressed her hope that Washington would recognize Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. Also, given that most Republican members of the Senate and House of Representatives, who are supported by Zionist and Christian Zionist financiers, it is unlikely that the Trump administration will not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich pledged during a speech he gave at a meeting of his Religious Zionism party to congratulate Trump on his victory in the US presidential elections, that 2025 would be the year of Israeli sovereignty over “Judea and Samaria.” Smotrich’s certainty is based on the fact that Trump aligns with the vision of the ruling Zionist right regarding dealing with the Palestinian issue, as this right has greater influence today than it did during Trump’s first term, and even more than at any time before that. This right currently controls all aspects and details of the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, not to mention its removal of “legal” obstacles to the expansion of settlements and the increase in the number of settlers. It also has influence at the highest levels of the military and judicial systems, and at decision-making centers in many aspects of political and societal life in Israel, which forces Trump to deal with it and conform to its policies.

There is no doubt that the Trump team is closely following the ongoing operations of the occupation army in the northern West Bank, to destroy refugee camps in the cities of Tulkarm and Jenin, to destroy homes and infrastructure in them, and to displace thousands of their residents with the aim of creating favorable conditions for the implementation of the annexation and the Trump administration’s recognition of it. Trump’s expected promise is the subject of statements by officials in his administration, such as the Ambassador to the United Nations (Elise Stefanik), who said that “Israel has biblical sovereignty over Judea and Samaria” and that in her view the Palestinians do not have rights as a people, “and certainly do not have the same rights as the Israelis,” as she claimed. Another indication of the possibility of obtaining the American promise is that Israel’s estimates indicate that Trump will resume his policy in his current term from where he left off in the first, specifically when an American-Israeli committee officially launched the annexation map in the West Bank in 2020.

Some may argue that Trump's policy in his second term may differ from his first, as evidenced by his insistence on stopping the war in the Gaza Strip. However, this belief is refuted by Trump's own statements, which indicate that his call to stop the war is only related to the issue of releasing the Israeli detainees in the Strip, after which Israel can do whatever it wants in Gaza or the West Bank, "because it's not our war... it's their war," as he put it. His position on Israel's annexation of parts of the West Bank was also clearly evident when he used a pen at a press conference he held in the Oval Office, comparing its size to the size of the desk he was sitting on, in reference to the small size of Israel compared to the Arab countries, and said, "It is definitely a small country in terms of area."

Just as the Zionist movement was active in transforming the Balfour Declaration into a reality by establishing Israel, such as encouraging Jewish immigration to Palestine, establishing settlements, and displacing Palestinians, Israel today has paved the way for Trump’s expected promise by enacting a set of laws in this direction. At the end of January 2024, the Knesset approved in its preliminary reading a law that allows settlers to buy and own land in the West Bank, which is practically an annulment of the Jordanian law on “renting and selling real estate to foreigners” issued in 1953, which prohibits the purchase of land in the West Bank by foreigners who do not hold Jordanian or Arab citizenship. In the same efforts, the Israeli government had announced about two years ago that it would place 3,200 Palestinian archaeological sites, most of them in Area C, under the administration of the so-called “Israeli Antiquities Authority.”

The goal of the Netanyahu government is not limited to attacking the cities of Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas, demolishing their camps and displacing their residents, but rather extends to dismantling the Palestinian Authority brick by brick. This is clearly evident in Israel’s withdrawal of the administrative powers of the Palestinian Authority in Area B, specifically in the Bethlehem Wilderness, which represents 3% of the West Bank, and assigning its responsibility to the Israeli Civil Administration. It also withdrew the authority’s powers to prevent it from issuing new building permits in that area. The “Smotrich Plan” to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians is the only one on the decision-making table in Israel. Many of its provisions have already been implemented, such as imposing a new “geo-demographic” reality in the West Bank, by legitimizing more settlements, intensifying settlement construction and increasing the number of settlers.

The rest of its provisions will be completed later when conditions become favorable, such as dividing the West Bank into several areas governed by separate civil administrations, and Israel retaining full security responsibility and absolute military freedom for the army there, after dismantling the Palestinian Authority, while maintaining police units to enforce order and law only.

Colonists like the English Balfour and the American Trump decide to grant land that is not theirs and to seize it from its original people to another invented people, in order to ensure their dominance over the Arab region. However, what Trump and Balfour before him missed is that the Palestinian people do not consider Trump’s possible recognition of Israel’s annexation of the West Bank to be an irresistible fate, just as they do not consider the Israeli occupation to be a fate, and this explains their continued resistance over the past 76 years.