First a Palestinian refusal, then an Israeli annexation
Before making any unilateral move, Israel must wait for a Palestinian rejection that will provide Jerusalem with the legitimacy to annex essential territories in the West Bank.
By ORI WERTMANU.S. President Donald Trump winks at Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they discuss a Middle East peace plan proposal during a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., January 28, 2020(photo credit: REUTERS/BRENDAN MCDERMID)
On January 21, Blue and White Chairman Benny Gantz declared that after the election, he would act to annex the Jordan Valley, which he called Israel’s “Eastern Shield,” coordinating the unilateral move with the international community. In this statement, Gantz aligns with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s initiative ahead of the September 2019 elections, in which he stated that his next government would begin sovereignty over the Jordan Valley. According to Netanyahu’s plan to annex the Jordan Valley, Israel will annex 22% of the West Bank territories, which includes thirty settlements with 13,000 residents. Thus, areas A and B located in the Jordan Valley, where 49,000 Palestinians live in sixteen communities connected to the PA with access roads, will remain under Palestinian sovereignty.One can understood the Israeli unilateral steps formula, already implemented in the 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon and the disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which emanated from the disappointment and recognition on the Israeli side that there is no Palestinian partner for peace. One of the enthusiastic supporters of the unilateral move formula is former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who led a courageous move to reach a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians led by Yasser Arafat. Barak, who executed a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, argues that in the absence of progress in negotiations with the Palestinians, a unilateral move in the West Bank should be made to disengage from the Palestinians, thereby marking the future border of Israel that will include settlement blocs, Jerusalem and a military presence on the Jordan River.Although demographically, there is very little concentration of Jewish settlement in the Jordan Valley, it has a great security significance for the State of Israel because it is a natural obstacle that gives the Jewish state strategic depth. From a military point of view, control of the Jordan Valley allows the IDF to deploy forces capable of keeping the threat from Gush Dan, which is Israel’s nerve center where most of Israel’s industrial population is concentrated. In fact, military forces can only be transported through five crossings in the ridge that delimits the Jordan Valley, which constitutes a physical defense barrier against enemy forces.During the Oslo process era in the 1990s, it was widely held that control of the Jordan Valley could be waived for the Palestinians as part of a peace agreement; those attitudes have changed. The rise of ISIS at the expense of sovereign Arab states such as Iraq and Syria has proven that with regard to its security, Israel must rely only on itself. Therefore, there is no doubt that maintaining the Jordan Valley under Israeli control is a vital strategic asset for the security of the Jewish state.GIVEN THERE is a sympathetic US government for Israel, which has recently recognized Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights, and an Arab world that cannot and does not determine to struggle for the Palestinians’ national rights, some contend that now is the ripe moment for the annexation of the Jordan Valley. Another point is the widespread claim that an Israeli annexation of the Jordan Valley is in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which stated that Israel must withdraw to secure and recognized boundaries, and not from all the territories that Israel occupied in the 1967 Six Day War from Jordan, which for its part, already gave up its claim for sovereignty in the West Bank in 1988.From an Israeli political point of view, there is a broad consensus among the Israeli public regarding the permanent Israeli control of the Jordan Valley, as the majority of Israelis considers it as one of the security foundations of the Jewish state. Hence, it is no wonder that except for the margins of the Zionist left and, of course, the Arab parties, the issue of Israeli control of the Jordan Valley is widely accepted throughout the Israeli political spectrum.Despite the security importance of the Jordan Valley for the Jewish state, Jerusalem must act wisely in order to achieve the Israeli goals. Thus, although there is current discourse about annexation, Israeli leaders must not conduct any unilateral steps before the Palestinian side announces its opposition to the Trump administration’s peace plan.Practically, the likelihood that the Palestinians will agree to the century’s deal is almost zero. Compared to the Clinton Parameters from December 2000, in which the Palestinians would receive a state of roughly 95% of the West Bank territories (including control of the Jordan Valley), and Jerusalem would be divided (including the Old City) on the basis of what is Jewish to Israel and what is Arab to Palestine, the Trump plan offers much less to the Palestinians. According to Trump’s “Deal of the Century,” the Palestinian state will control approximately 70% of the West Bank territories, leaving the Jordan Valley under Israeli sovereignty. Jerusalem, including the Old City, will also remain under Israeli sovereignty, except for the Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem.In either scenario, whether Israel and the Palestinians will agree to the Trump administration’s peace plan, or whether the Palestinian side will reject it and then Israel will execute a unilateral annexation/disengagement step, the Jordan Valley will be under Israeli sovereignty. Therefore, before making any unilateral move, Israel must wait for a Palestinian rejection that will provide Jerusalem with the legitimacy to annex essential territories in the West Bank. Unfortunately, the Palestinian’s perpetual refusal only proves that they are not willing to compromise in order to reach a truly peace with Israel, and hence Israel must act unilaterally to determine its secure and recognized boundaries.The writer is a PhD candidate and research assistant at the International Center for Policing and Security at the University of South Wales.
