Ben Rhodes

The Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into three areas.

Area A, which is 18% of the West Bank, that's under the control of the PA, the Palestinian Authority.

Area B, that's 22% of the West Bank, that's joint control of the PA and Israel.

Area C, that's 60% of the West Bank, that's under Israeli control.

So first of all, a lot of people don't know this.

Israel controls most of the West Bank.

People like to talk about the weak, feckless Palestinian Authority.

Well, one of the reasons they're weak and feckless is they don't even control the territory that they're supposed to.

But now the changes.

In the last couple of weeks, the Israeli government has made a series of announcements to make it easier for Israelis to purchase land from Palestinians, to expand Israeli enforcement, including the power to demolish Palestinian buildings, which they regularly do, into areas A and B, so the Palestinian-controlled areas, for violations involving, to quote the Wall Street Journal,

water-related offenses, damaged archaeological sites, and environmental hazards.

So basically, pretext for them to just go in and demolish Palestinian structures.

Made Israel the sole authority for planning permission near important religious sites, of which there are many.

And for the first time since 1967, Israel will begin to designate large portions of Area C as state land.

And the goal is 15% of Area C in the next few years, unless the current Palestinian owners can prove their ownership.

And as the Israeli organization Peace Now notes, that process requires landowners to prove ownership in ways that are really almost impossible for Palestinians to do so.

Look, Eamon, what do you make of these steps and what's been going on in the West Bank recently, something that doesn't get as much attention as it should?

Yeah, I mean, you're describing the dynamic exactly.

And again, it connects to the Ukraine and Greenland point.

I mean, now is the era of no rules, and now is the era of annexation.