It is amazing how quickly the US and its European allies, members of the G7, have quickly — in a matter of few weeks — come out with a set of punitive measures against Russia for its annexation of neighbouring Crimea, which has a large majority of Russians who have just supported the reunion in a popular vote.

The shocking other side of the coin is the inexplicable inaction of the same group, alongside many other westerners, in punishing Israel for its continued illegal occupation since 1967 of the Palestinian West Bank and the subsequent illegal Israeli colonies that have mushroomed there. This abhorrent move is believed to be a “war crime” in accordance with Article 8 of the International Criminal Court statutes.

To date, there are more than 500,000 Israeli colonists in the occupied West Bank, which is hardly 22 per cent of Palestine — including occupied Arab East Jerusalem, better known as the “Old City”. And this illegal Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories is shockingly proceeding daily — thanks to its western allies who have kept looking the other way for the last 47 years.

And now, to add more fuel to the fire, the right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is insisting that the Palestinians ought to recognise Israel as a “Jewish state” — a position that has been rejected time and again by the Palestinians and more assuredly seconded again this week by the leaders of the 22-member League of Arab States at their just-concluded summit meeting in Kuwait.

Additionally, ethnic cleansing is pursued regularly and harshly by Israelis, though they ought to note that this blatant action is in violation of Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This month, more than 2,000 housing units were added in the illegal West Bank colonies and, according to the Ma’an news agency, Israeli bulldozers early last Wednesday had demolished a Palestinian-owned building in occupied East Jerusalem — that housed a mosque, a medical centre and apartments — “without prior notice”.

Israel’s “pugnacious” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman — as described by Mondoweiss.net, a progressive American Jewish website — has now managed to get an alleged legal opinion from his legal adviser, which would allow Israel to transfer Palestinians living in north Israel, the area known as the Triangle, to the projected Palestinian state.

In turn, Haaretz, the liberal Israeli daily, declared that “the very fact that the Foreign Ministry is discussing transferring part of the (Palestinian Arab) population outside the borders of the state of Israel for ethnic and nationalist reasons is unacceptable in principle”. In other words, the foreign minister, and now his ministry as well, Haaretz added, “are effectively telling the (Israeli) state’s Arab citizens that they aren’t wanted in the state of Israel, and their citizenship is temporary and conditional”.

Lieberman’s plan, the paper continued, “has a single overarching goal: Turning Israel into a pure ethnic and religious state. Therefore, the goal of this plan cannot be described as anything other than ethnic cleansing — even if not by force of arms”. This Israeli view by a prominent member of the Israeli cabinet should give US Secretary of State John Kerry — who is scheduled to meet Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz alongside President Barack Obama today after his earlier meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — is enough ammunition to silence the Israeli right-wing and to seriously consider a more reasonable approach to settle the decades-old conflict. Israel has to understand that this is one reason why the Palestinians cannot accept Israel as a “Jewish state” where 20 per cent of the population is Palestinian Arab-Muslims and Christians.

The charm of a one-state solution is now gaining ground. Even the son of the Palestinian president, as noted in a recent New York Times interview, Tareq Abbas, has been telling his father that the last chance for a two-state settlement is already long gone and the negotiations are futile. The New York Times described Abbas’s 48-year-old son as “part of a swelling cadre of prominent Palestinians advocating instead the creation of a single state stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, in which Jews and Arabs would all be citizens with equal rights”.

The immediate and crucial test for Israel will come tomorrow when it releases, as agreed upon with Kerry, the last batch of Palestinian prisoners, including a few Arabs from Israel, ahead of the end-of-April deadline for final negotiations. If successful, the final negotiations will begin soon thereafter.

George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com.