Full annexation of the West Bank could cost the Israeli government NIS 67 billion a year, David Brodt, former director-general of the Finance Ministry, and currently a partner in an economic report commissioned by the Commanders for Israel Security, warned on Tuesday.
“Annexation of 2.5 million Palestinians will incur expenses of NIS 67 billion per year,” Brodt told Army Radio. “After the earnings added by the Palestinians that will be annexed, the State of Israel will lose about NIS 52 billion.”
Using a small representative group of the Palestinian population that will potentially be included in the annexation, Brodt said he was able to predict the cost of annexation. It would include the need for an increase to the budget of the National Insurance Institute, the Education Ministry and the Welfare Ministry.
“In the Jordan Valley alone, if you don’t take into account Jericho which will stay under the Palestinian government, there’s about 30,000 people. If they get Israeli residency, such as the Palestinians living in east Jerusalem, maintaining their living costs could incur upwards of several hundreds of million of shekels a year. And this is a relatively small group,” he said. According to Brodt, partial annexation will lead Israel into a dangerous place. He warned that after annexing a small part of the territory, diplomatic and political pressure could end up pushing Israel to grant citizenship to all of the Palestinians in the West Bank and full annexation of Judea and Samaria, conquered by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War. “The dynamics of annexation creates an illusion that we can perform a partial annexation,” he added. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to push through annexation of up to 30% of the West Bank at the beginning of July, under President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century”, but the move has caused international condemnation and concern amongst Israeli settlers.
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