Global & US Headlines
Israel Abolishes Land-Sale Ban, Extends Civil Powers into Areas A & B of West Bank
On 8–9 Feb 2026, Israel’s five-member security cabinet adopted a package that removes restrictions on Jewish Israelis buying West Bank land and transfers key licensing, registry and enforcement authorities from the Palestinian Authority to Israeli agencies.
Focusing Facts
- The decision, unveiled 8 Feb 2026 by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz, requires only the signature of the West Bank’s military commander and bypasses the Knesset.
- A 59-year-old Jordanian law barring land sales to non-Arabs was repealed and Ottoman-era land registries will now be publicly accessible, exposing roughly 1.2 million individual plots to direct purchase bids.
- Israeli regulators received new mandate to police water, archaeological sites and environmental issues in Areas A & B—about 40 % of the territory where nearly 3 million Palestinians reside.
Context
This manoeuvre echoes Israel’s 1980 Basic Law that formally annexed East Jerusalem and the 1981 Golan Heights Law—both incremental steps that were later normalised despite initial global censure. Structurally, it continues a century-long settler-colonial pattern seen in the 1862 US Homestead Act or South Africa’s 1913 Natives Land Act: change the paperwork first, then the demographics. By hollowing out the 1993 Oslo framework and the 1997 Hebron Protocol, the move signals a pivot from ‘conflict management’ to unambiguous territorial incorporation, eroding the two-state paradigm that has underpinned diplomacy since UN GA Resolution 181 in 1947. Over a 100-year horizon, this could entrench a single polity stretching from the Jordan to the Mediterranean—either an unequal ethnonational state or, if pressure mounts, a rights-based binational model—fundamentally recasting Israeli-Palestinian relations and the wider Middle-East alignment long after today’s leaders are gone.
Perspectives
Arab and Muslim world media
e.g., Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, Qatar News Agency, UrduPoint — Cast the Israeli cabinet’s moves as a deliberate step toward full annexation and a new ‘apartheid’ regime that nullifies Oslo and demands international sanctions. Coverage foregrounds Palestinian voices and uses charged terms like “legal coup” and “ethnic cleansing,” largely sidelining Israeli security arguments and painting the issue as settled fact rather than contested.
Western mainstream outlets
e.g., BBC, France 24, AFP wire carried by France 24 — Report that governments and the UN fear the measures violate international law and fatally erode any two-state solution, highlighting mounting diplomatic backlash. Stories lean on official condemnations and legal framing while offering minimal space for Israeli government rationales, creating an implicitly critical tilt despite a factual tone.
Israeli national media in English
e.g., The Times of Israel — Covers the decisions mainly through the prism of their diplomatic fallout and Israeli domestic politics, noting that Smotrich seeks to ‘kill’ a Palestinian state while tallying outside criticism. By centering Israeli political maneuvering and using procedural language like “tighten control,” the coverage can downplay the lived impact on Palestinians and treat annexation talk as part of routine policy debate.