Photograph Source: West Bank barrier (“Separation Wall”) – CC BY-SA 2.5

On July 23, the Israeli Knesset voted 71 to 13 in favor of a “non-binding” motion to “annex” the West Bank, where Palestinian Arabs have lived under Israeli military occupation since 1967.

Naturally, Knesset speaker Amir Ohana disagrees with that plain statement of fact. Channeling Adolf Hitler’s ethno-nationalist claims on Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, Austria, etc., Ohana proclaimed that “Jews cannot be the ‘occupier’ of a land that for 3,000 years has been called Judea.”

Will Benjamin Netanyahu heed the “non-binding” will of the Knesset?

If so, what will the effects, both internationally and for the area’s 2.1 million Arab inhabitants, look like?

Internationally, it’s unlikely that most other regimes will recognize the annexation. Of the UN’s member states, 147........

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