This September, the Palestinian leadership intends to go to the UN General Assembly to ask for recognition as an independent state on the 1967 borders.
Having lived under occupation for 40+ years and having participated for 20 years in a fruitless peace process, they have been slowly taking independent steps to achieve their goal of freedom and self-determination. They have been building up their civil institutions, Fatah and Hamas, the two rival leadership factions, have signed a reconciliation deal, Mahmoud Abbas has trekked the globe lining up international support, and has gotten it.
In response, today Israeli Likud MK Danny Danon told prime minister Netanyahu that "we will need to annex the West Bank Settlements."
Annexation is a lawless step. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, to which Israel is a party, prohibits annexation (and war) as a means to territorial gain. Article 47:
Protected persons who are in occupied territory shall not be deprived, in any case or in any manner whatsoever, of the benefits of the present Convention by any change introduced, as the result of the occupation of a territory, into the institutions or government of the said territory, nor by any agreement concluded between the authorities of the occupied territories and the Occupying Power, nor by any annexation by the latter of the whole or part of the occupied territory.
Article 49 prohibits mass movement of people out of or into occupied territory:
Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive. ... The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.
But that didn't stop Israel from annexing East Jerusalem, a move that to this day no country (except Israel) recognizes as legitimate. Not even the United States. With Israel becoming more and more isolated following the 2006 Lebanon War, Operation Cast Lead, the attack on the Gaza Flotilla, the revelations of Israeli intransigence in the Palestine Papers, why would Israel take yet another step towards further international isolation?
One theory:
The truly big problem lies in the Palestinians' ability to sign international agreements, with the Rome Accords topping the list: These would grant judicial authority to the International Criminal Court over all territory beyond Israel's 1967 borders, and over every Israeli soldier or official who is present there.
"The most dramatic and practical arena of action is the International Court," says Prof. David Kretzmer of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "Until now, there was a doubt whether the court had jurisdiction over Israeli activities in the territories. But if 140 countries recognize Palestine, there is no doubt that the International Court prosecution will also recognize it. Then everything that Israel does will be subject to its judgment." According to Kretzmer, this fact bears special relevance to the settlements, including those in East Jerusalem.
"It would appear," he adds, "that if [Israel] decides to settle additional populations beyond the Green Line, it will be possible to sue the decision makers: the defense minister, the prime minister and officials. Israel will not be able to continue to claim that the area is disputed. The dispute will end, and Israel will be the occupier of another country."
In other words, Israel would have to face up to the facts that the rest of the world already understands: there is an occupation, it is illegal, the settlements are illegal and it's time for Israel to go back over the green line.