Annexation the Israeli Way.. Sovereignty Without Declaration and Occupation Without a Name

No need to worry, everything happening in the West Bank is merely “security procedures.” Tanks entering Jenin in broad daylight are nothing more than an armored love letter, and soldiers' strolls in Nablus are an existential threat that doesn't warrant all this mobilization. Demolishing homes in Jerusalem is just a delicate application of the law, and displacement in Tulkarm is merely urban reorganization. Daily arrests are a democratic fitness exercise, checkpoints around Ramallah are traffic improvements, and Israeli flags planted on hills or in some villages are seasonal decorations reflecting the spirit of the holiday. This is roughly the language we are meant to understand what is happening. Israel is annexing the West Bank, or “managing” it very tightly, to the extent that a Palestinian needs permission to breathe between one checkpoint and another. It doesn't impose sovereignty, but fully exercises it without bothering itself with an official declaration. Why the rush? As long as reality is shaped daily on the ground, and as long as the international community contents itself with statements of condemnation and deep concern, there is no need for a historic speech in the Knesset to declare what already exists. Annexation in its classic form requires a political decision, and perhaps diplomatic noise. Modern annexation, however, is more elegant: a settlement expanding here, a bypass road cutting through a hill there, a checkpoint turning from temporary to permanent, an incursion repeated until it becomes routine, and a house demolished because its owner did not obtain a permit he knew in advance would not be granted. This is how sovereignty is built… with administrative calm. In Jenin, tanks enter to confirm that the “occupation ended” years ago, as we were told. In Jerusalem, homes are demolished in the name of the law, because the law is a very flexible entity when it comes to Palestinians. In Tulkarm, people are displaced for vague security reasons, as Israeli security is an elastic concept that encompasses everything, from a child throwing a stone to an entire city punished for breathing outside the required rhythm. As for talk of a two-state solution, it is a protocol paragraph revived when needed at international conferences. On the ground, there is one state that exercises everything: control over crossings, water, sky, land, movement, and economy. The other party? An extended municipal administration with stripped sovereignty, whose primary task is to control the rhythm of the street until the “final arrangement,” which is not called annexation, is completed. The funny thing is that all of this happens without an official declaration, as if Israel is telling the world: we don't have to embarrass you with a clear decision, we will annex quietly, and you continue to talk about a political horizon. We engineer the geography, and you formulate the statements. We plant flags, and you plant the vocabulary of “calm” and “de-escalation.” In the West Bank today, the bulldozer has become a negotiating tool, the checkpoint has turned into an actual border line, and the military patrol into a daily definition of the meaning of sovereignty. The question is no longer: Is there annexation? But rather: What remains outside this gradual annexation? It is an occupation without a name, sovereignty without declaration, and annexation without an official speech. A project that advances step by step, while the Palestinian is asked to act as if nothing has changed, and to wait for negotiations that might return to him what no longer exists. Perhaps in the end, Israel will officially declare annexation, but by then the declaration will be merely a symbolic celebration of what has already been achieved, for maps are not drawn in speeches, but on the ground, where they are rewritten every day, with a dark irony that needs no commentary.