Trump's Golan decision could spur more annexations’

LONDON

U.S. President Donald Trump’s “gift” of recognizing Syria’s Golan Heights as part of Israel could lead to an increasing trend of annexation of Palestinian land, said a British activist.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency during an event organized by the Arab Association For Human Rights (AOHR) in London, Asa Winstanley – an associate editor for an online campaign group called the Electronic Intifada – said there has been an increasing trend among mainstream Israeli political parties to call for annexing Palestinian land in the West Bank.

“I think, with Trump’s gift to Netanyahu of recognizing the Syrian Golan [Heights] as part of so-called Israel, we are going to see an increasing trend of annexation,” Winstanley said.

“So the outright annexation of the West Bank is kind of a contradiction for the Zionist movement because they want maximum land and minimum Arabs.

“There are millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, and they don’t want to give them equality. They don’t want to give them voting rights.

Referring to Netanyahu’s latest remarks on his intent to annex the West Bank, Hannah Phillips, a researcher focusing on human rights challenges in the Middle East, said they are “very worrying”.

“It is vital that the international community should stay strong in sending him [Netanyahu] a message that the occupation must come to an end and the Palestinians must have full rights within the state,” Phillips said.

Phillips said the event by the AOHR aimed to shed light on the recent bombardment of Gaza by Israeli occupation forces and also on the detention of Palestinian prisoners as well as human rights abuses in Israeli prisons.

“At the moment, we know there are 250 children being detained in Israeli facilities. Israel is the only state that holds children in military facilities alongside adults.”

Phillips said hundreds of civilians who are ill are being held in Israeli prisons without receiving treatment.

The panel held by the AOHR featured speakers from various platforms and organizations.

Winstanley said the message of the panel to the Israeli state is to end the siege on Gaza and the collective punishment of 2 million Palestinians because they are the wrong ethnicity according to the Israeli apartheid regime.

Kiri Tunks, president of Britain’s National Education Union, said Palestinian citizens’ rights must be upheld.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Tunks said as she is coming from an education union, “we are particularly concerned about the plight of the Palestinian child prisoners who are being routinely detained in an attempt to intimidate the community, and it has to stop.”

“We think they are in breach of international law and…the Geneva convention, so that has to stop right away.

“It can’t go on.”