In a move Palestinians condemn as "de facto annexation," Israel’s security cabinet strips away legal barriers to settlement expansion days before a critical Trump-Netanyahu summit.

The facade of the two-state solution has crumbled in the corridors of power in Jerusalem. In a decisive and provocative maneuver, Israel’s security cabinet has approved a sweeping package of measures designed to fundamentally alter the legal status of the occupied West Bank. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the architect of this policy, did not mince words about the objective: "We will continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state."

This is not merely a bureaucratic adjustment; it is a seismic shift in the governance of the occupied territories. The measures, set to be signed by the military commander, effectively erase the "Green Line" for Jewish purchasers. By cancelling a decades-old military order that prohibited the direct sale of land in the West Bank to individual Jews, the government has opened the floodgates for private acquisition without the mediation of registered companies.

The Erasure of Oversight

Perhaps most alarming for legal observers is the removal of the "transaction permit" requirement. Previously, the defense establishment maintained a layer of oversight to prevent fraud and manage the sensitive geopolitical implications of land transfers. That safeguard has been abolished. Simultaneously, the declassification of local land registry records strips away the anonymity that once protected Palestinian landowners from coercion.

• Legalizing the Outposts: The measures facilitate the "redemption" of land, a term used by the settler movement to describe the acquisition of Palestinian territory for Jewish settlement.
• The Washington Context: The timing is surgical. These changes were announced just three days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington, signaling confidence that the American administration will offer no resistance.

A "Dangerous" Escalation

The reaction from Ramallah has been swift and furious. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has labeled the measures "dangerous," describing them as an open attempt to legalize land confiscation and demolition, even in areas ostensibly under Palestinian sovereignty. The Palestinian Authority fears this will unleash a wave of forgery and deceit, forcing individual landowners into distress sales under duress.

For the millions of Palestinians living under military occupation, the message is clear: the land they walk on is being sold out from under them, not by the inch, but by the acre. As the international community looks to Washington for a response, the facts on the ground have already been irreversibly changed.