Analysts concerned with global issues frequently repeated the slogan that what comes after coronavirus will not be the same as had come before it, while Palestinians add their pressing concern to this slogan… what comes, after July 2020, will not be the same as what came before it.
A strong internal debate has been ignited among Palestinians without their having a clear vision of what the situation will look like after July, after the crystallization of Israel’s decision on the annexation of parts of the West Bank and how it will be actualized.
The Palestinians are following the parallel debate between Tel Aviv and Washington and the initial leaks coming out from both sides of the debate, who are on the same side concerning annexation but disagree over how it ought to be implemented and the areas it ought to encompass. Palestinians are concerned with the state of affairs of the citizens who live on and own land that is part of the area that will be annexed as well as the conditions of the Palestinian Authority, which is responsible for the affairs of the lives of millions of Palestinians, post-annexation, taking into account the magnitude and depth of the overall connection between the Palestinians’ conditions, especially in the West Bank, and Israel, which indiscriminately occupies, sometimes through direct military intervention, wounding and killing Palestinians and destroying their homes and interfering in the security of all areas of the West Bank, where daily arrests that spare none are made, not exempting even those who merely comment on social media. This brutal occupation coincides, it would not be an exaggeration to say, with some of the facilitation to Palestinians’ daily lives that narrow and expand in line with Israel’s needs and the demands of its agenda of controlling the Palestinians in every way. The issue of permits, which the Palestinians cannot move without, sufficiently demonstrates Israel’s tight control of Palestinians’ mobility in any direction they take. This matter affects the vast majority of citizens, for whoever does not have a movement permit cannot earn a living that day.
All of this, and July has yet to arrive, and we do not know precisely what the Israelis will do, especially since annexation is not a mere political decision, but will inevitably change ways of life directly. Its impact will not be limited to those who reside in the areas that will be annexed; it will affect Palestinian society as a whole, which remains tightly intertwined, regardless of the A B C Oslo designations or whether they live in areas under direct or indirect Israeli control.
The immediate question before July 1, which is approaching, are all worrying- no, terrifying. The ambiguity that has yet to clear up amplifies apprehension, as does the potential collapse of the infrastructure of relative Palestinian stability, principally Palestinian Authority, its ministries, security apparatuses, and provision of services. Although they are not ideal, Palestinians have gotten used to them and see them as providing a degree of independence from the Israeli occupation’s absolute domination of education, health, the economy, administration, and other facets of life. The most frequently asked question during this ambiguous phase is whether these relative positives will be replaced with threats, disfunction and vacuum, which will emerge out of the chaos that may follow and would inevitably be exacerbated by unfettered acts of violence, most of which will be individual acts, which is more frightening to Israelis and expands the circle of violent reactions, especially those of a preemptive nature, as questions in the West Bank raise questions, though with a different degree of intensity, in Gaza as well. After July, the status quo that established relative calm on the borders will inevitably collapse, the flames of confrontation will immediately ignite, bringing to a halt the efforts to quell tensions that sometimes come close to bringing about real breakthroughs. For factions under the influence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad will not fail to heed the call of duty raised by the catastrophic annexation decision, doing all they can to prove that the actual resistance is "here", and such flares will lead to greater escalation by the Israeli military machine.
The Palestinians are particularly unfortunate today, as the challenges of annexation coincide with several biological and political epidemics, even strategic ones, as the despotic coronavirus strikes, in a second wave, the fragile Palestinians, as though it had been planned for Black July and to coincide with the storms browning in the squares of the Arab Spring, which have provided justifications for many of those who are refraining from adopting their traditional supportive positions on this formerly central issue. Palestinians’ burdens are certain to become heavier with the upcoming annexation and the second wave. The issue is not that the salaries of 200,000 employees will be cut or undelivered, rather that life will dramatically change course and move in a direction that has not yet been fully determined, adding new burdens to an already Palestinian national movement, already fraught with internal and external challenges and exhausted by occupation that will add to agenda the obliteration of the Palestinian cause.
The course of action that is likely to be taken by the Palestinian ruling class is to deal with the impending danger sensibly and provide the groundwork for the nourishment of a global legitimate political battle. However this sensible class raises a question; will things remain under control, or will Israel, which throws a corpse or more into its river of catastrophes, as though it were gifting Palestinians funerals to fuel the flames of their fervent reactions and add bricks to their wall of pain prevent such sensibility from persisting? The early indications are not encouraging so far, and the fields will answer these questions after the first of July.
