The Zionist project that established Israel in 1948 always had at its centre the aim of acquiring Palestine's land without its native population. In the 72 years of Israel's existence to date, that aim never wavered. It led to the mass Palestinian expulsions of 1947-9, the second mass expulsion in 1967, and an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing since then to denude the Palestinian presence in the country still further.
We may now be reaching the terminal stages of that process if Israel's proposed annexation of parts of the West Bank goes ahead. In that event the consequent loss of West Bank land will destroy any chance of a state the Palestinians had hoped for in the remnants of their original homeland. Instead, Trump's Middle East peace plan will offer them a series of disconnected islands amid an Israeli sea of Jewish settlements to be their state.
It is an existential moment in Palestinian history that confronts Palestinians with hard choices and little time. Annexation is supposed to commence this month, but may be delayed, as opinion is divided inside Israel on when and whether it should happen. The US, Israel's backer and architect of the 'deal of the century' that encouraged this annexation, has argued it should happen only in the context of peace negotiations towards a Palestinian state.
