So You Want to Annex the West Bank? Choose Option 1, 2, or 3.

(Spoiler: They All Lead Somewhere You Don’t Want to Go)

So you want to annex the West Bank. Great, sure.

Maybe you’re a true believer who’s convinced that G-d endowed us Jews with this land, and you’re willing to do anything to fulfill your HaShem-given mission to exert religious and ethnic dominance over the entirety of the region.

Maybe you’re a security hawk that thinks annexation will lead to increased safety within Israel proper.

Or, maybe you’re so traumatized by growing up and living in the shadow of intifada, war, and October 7th that you’ve come to view coexistence alongside the Palestinians as a fundamental impossibility. Of all of the reasons, this one is, I think, the most understandable. While I might find it tragic and ultimately self-destructive, at least it’s honest, and doesn’t force a personal expression of religious nationalism down everyone else’s throat. Nor does it rely on a naively idealized perception of Israel’s economic and security realities.

But whatever your rationale, you clearly haven’t thought things through. Because no matter how it’s done, annexing the West Bank will be the end of Israel as we know it. So let’s review the options, shall we?

Option 1: Annexation With Citizenship

Let’s say the government takes over the West Bank with a “true” annexation, just as Jordan did in 1948. Cool, now you have 3.3 million Palestinians living in Israel proper as equal citizens with full voting rights. That’s what you want, right?

No? Why not?

Oh, it’s a massive demographic shift that will fundamentally destroy Israel’s character as a Jewish state—which, if you want to annex the West Bank, you probably don’t want to happen? Huh. So you don’t want the Joint List leading the government? Welp, guess that option is off the table.

But wait, there’s more! Because if all 3.3 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank gain citizenship tomorrow, the security barrier becomes useless overnight. They’ll have full freedom of movement within Israel. How exactly does that make Israelis more secure? You want 3.3 million people, many of whom are exceptionally hostile to Israel’s existence (to say the very least) within the nation’s borders? You think that will lead to increased safety? And that question brings us to our next option…

Option 2: Annexation Without Citizenship

Let’s say the government annexes the West Bank without granting citizenship to the region’s Palestinians residents. Great, now Israel is an actual apartheid state with unequal rights based on ethnicity. And beyond the extreme level of moral repugnance this option implies, it’s also wildly impractical.

The IDF is already facing a devastating manpower shortage that’s only projected to grow worse as more and more miluimnikim burn out from continual deployment, and as more and more citizens with the means to do so continue to emigrate (you know, the type of citizens that actually have jobs and pay taxes). And if Netanyahu’s coalition wins the upcoming election, the manpower shortage will become a full-on crisis as the Haredim exempt themselves from military service indefinitely.

Israel has already experienced the disastrous consequences of this manpower shortage as it relates to the government’s West Bank policy firsthand; two companies protecting the Gaza border were transferred to shore up defenses near Nablus just days prior to October 7th.

But that was just 100 or so soldiers. How many thousands—or more likely, tens of thousands—of soldiers would have to be transferred to the West Bank to protect Israeli citizens if Jewish-only towns and neighborhoods were to pop up within Areas A and B, with no defensible borders separating them from their Palestinian neighbors? How many tens of thousands of soldiers would be required to police the Jewish-only roads, checkpoints, facilities, and so forth this separate-but-not-equal arrangement would necessitate?

And let’s not forget, the West Bank is currently in a period of relative peace, with comparatively few settlements (comparatively being the operative word here) presently existing outside of Area C. What would happen in the event of another intifada—which, if Israel were to annex the West Bank while keeping the region’s Palestinians as a permanent underclass without equal rights, would very likely occur?

Israel arguably lacks the manpower to fight multi-front conflicts while properly protecting its own borders right now. Transferring massive amounts of soldiers and materiel to protect an influx of settlers inside Areas A and B—which, owing to their fragmented geography, are already extremely difficult to police—wouldn’t be security. It would be a strategic disaster.

Option 3: Forced Population Transfer

So if you don’t want to grant West Bank Palestinians equal rights, and you don’t have the manpower to enforce an apartheid, how exactly do you annex the West Bank? The obvious answer is the most unfortunate one—and one that is, sadly, now being publicly entertained at the most extreme fringes of Israeli society.

Let’s put aside, for a moment, the fact that ethnically cleansing (sorry, “voluntarily emigrating”) three and a half million people, no matter who they are, is so comically monstrous that it almost defies belief. And let’s pretend, for argument’s sake, that this is indeed your goal. The question remains: how exactly would you plan on accomplishing that feat?

The West Bank isn’t Gaza. It’s not a tiny, densely-populated strip of land. How many tens of thousands of soldiers (that Israel doesn’t have to spare), working for years, would it take to track down, round up, and forcibly deport that many people? Jordan has made it abundantly clear that they’re not willing to accept any Palestinian refugees, let alone 3.3 million of them, so where exactly would those people go?

And even if every West Bank Palestinian wanted to leave, which they don’t, and which they would fight to their last breath, how would you get them to a country with whom they don’t share a border? It would take almost 8,000 flights in a 787 at absolute maximum capacity to move that many people—that’s 8 flights a day for a thousand days straight. Where exactly would those planes full of Palestinians, many of whom would presumably be dead-set on killing Israelis, depart from? One of the air force’s hyper-sensitive bases? The passenger terminal at Ben Gurion? Be serious.

Meanwhile, what would happen to Israel itself were the government to try and make good on such an endeavor? Do you really think the international community, or even the United States, would stand idly by?

According to most estimates, including those from the IDF, roughly 74,000 people (civilians and militants alike) have been killed in the Gaza war to date—and even that’s been enough to dramatically erode Israel’s international standing, including in the United States, and turn the country into an international pariah.

Now imagine if the Israeli government openly attempted to systematically round up, imprison, and expel over three million people from the West Bank. Even Trump wouldn’t have the political capital to go along with that. Nobody would.

As much as certain Israelis like to believe the country can exist in a vacuum, without a single ally or trade partner, basic facts disagree.

Israel is a mass importer of foodstuffs, bringing in over 90% of its grains, 80% of its legumes, seed oils, and nuts, and 60% of its beef, according to JPost. And that’s to say nothing of the animal fodder the country requires in order to, you know, actually feed all the livestock it doesn’t import. Israel has to bring in around 100% of that from abroad.

So if US diplomatic cover were to dry up (exceptionally possible, given the way the winds are blowing in America), and Israel were faced with crippling import sanctions at the hands of the UN—or even individual trade partners—what exactly would Israelis eat? Hopes and dreams? Their Blundstone boots? “Moshiach Is Here” posters?

And that’s not even mentioning Israel’s other import necessities, like the crude oil that keeps the country’s lights on, the fertilizer it uses to grow whatever produce and grains it doesn’t import, and the military hardware (or vital precursors to the same) that it needs to defend itself.

Lest you think this is an overdramatic take, remember: a dozen countries moved to curb trade with Israel’s West Bank settlements just a few weeks ago. Do you really think the majority of the world would hesitate, even for a moment, to do the same to Israel as a whole if it were to annex the West Bank and attempt to round up and deport its entire Palestinian population?

Even in a best-case scenario, in which American support remained steadfast and the United Nations didn’t do a thing, how many individual countries would stop trading with Israel? More than enough to create extreme shortages, wreck the economy (which, again, relies on trade), drive hyperinflation, and make life in this country unbearable at an existential scale.

Oh, and we haven’t even touched on the chaos that something like this would wreak within Israeli society. How many instrumental professionals like doctors, tech workers, and engineers would flee the country? How would the shekel maintain any purchasing power, particularly if Israel were locked out of SWIFT? How many soldiers would even report for duty? Hundreds of fighter pilots already threatened to go AWOL prior to October 7th in response to Netanyahu’s “judicial reforms”. How effective do you think Israel would be in defending itself against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran without air power?

So: Which Option Will It Be?

So, to the almost 2/5ths of Israeli Jews who favor annexing the West Bank, stop for a moment and actually consider the consequences of what you’re supporting. No matter how it’s done, annexation won’t turn out the way you want it to. At best, Israel will cease to be a Jewish country. At worst, it will destroy everything you hold dear.

Again: you really haven’t thought this through.

And before you accuse me of being self-hating, or disloyal, or not understanding the plight of Israelis, understand this: people I love very much live in Israel. People I care about very much live in Israel. And for that matter, I live in Israel. And I think it’s very important that Israel continue to exist and thrive, especially in this upside-down, bizarro-world period of global instability and exploding antisemitism.

Yes, the international community is going to continue to accuse Israel of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and all other manner of heinous crimes regardless of whether or not the West Bank is annexed. But that doesn’t mean that Israel should do those things, especially because doing so would be so patently self-destructive.

When did that become a controversial take?