What does suspending annexation mean for Israel’s eastern border?
What’s clear from the subtly different statements is that Israel will not be implementing its part of the Trump peace plan – applying its laws to up to 30% of the West Bank – in the near future.
By LAHAV HARKOVSigns abour annexation with pictures of US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are displayed in Israel(photo credit: COURTESY YESHA COUNCIL)
Mixed messages came from Jerusalem, Abu Dhabi and Washington on Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria after the White House announced the “Abraham Accords” on Thursday.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he “did not and will not remove sovereignty from the agenda.”Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed said “an agreement was reached to stop further Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories.”US President Donald Trump said “Israel has agreed not to do it... I think it was a smart concession,” but then said that he “can’t talk about some time in the future.” US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said “suspended” means “not off the table permanently.”What’s clear from the subtly different statements is that Israel will not be implementing its part of the Trump peace plan – applying its laws to up to 30% of the West Bank – in the near future.That has implications for Israel’s security and leaves the question of Israel’s eastern border as open as it has ever been.American sources made clear that extending sovereignty will not happen this year, and if it doesn’t happen this year, then there’s a chance it won’t happen at all. Polls show Democratic candidate for president Joe Biden in the lead, and he won’t allow Israel to make any sovereignty moves.After praising the “recognition that Israel is a vibrant, integral part of the Middle East that is here to stay” in his response to the normalization announcement, Biden added that “annexation would be a body blow to the cause of peace, which is why I oppose it now and would oppose it as president.”The governments of Israel and the UAE prefer Trump’s tough talk on Iran over Biden’s promise to return to the 2015 Iran deal, but when it comes to sovereignty, both gambled on the US presidential election’s result. For the UAE, the silver lining of a Biden win would be no annexation. For Israel, Netanyahu decided that promoting peace with Arab countries is a more urgent priority and a greater boost to Israel’s national security than setting Israel’s eastern border, and if the political situation in the US means the latter won’t happen in the next four years, so be it.After all, Netanyahu said on Thursday night that “without support from the US, in the best case [sovereignty] would be worthless, and in the worst case, it would hurt ties very much.”With Netanyahu backing down temporarily, or not, from sovereignty moves, what would have been a big win for Israel from the Trump plan from his perspective, his challenge is to keep the plan’s change of discourse about Israel alive.The decades-long question of Israel’s eastern border was set to be answered by the Trump plan, and Netanyahu repeatedly praised the plan as setting final borders for Israel. The plan moved away from a full withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines – the accurate name for 1967 lines – to Israel retaining 30% of the West Bank, including all Israeli settlements and the Jordan Valley becoming Israel’s eastern border.That eastern border would have been a boon to national security, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) President Dore Gold, who advised the Trump administration as it prepared its peace plan, explained soon after the plan was released. Jordan Valley is one of Israel’s most vital security interests, even in the missile age, he said.“What decides wars is the movement of ground armies,” he said. “As long as that is the case, then the conditions affecting land warfare, like topography, terrain and strategic depth, are part of the requirements for Israel’s national security. The Jordan Valley isn’t just an area adjacent to the river... It’s a 4,200 incline in a narrow distance, which is a natural defense for a numerically inferior army. Israel has to call up reserves. Conditions on the ground allow for territorial defense of Israel until reserve mobilizations are complete.”With control of the Jordan Valley, Israel could resist an attack from the east along its longest border despite the IDF’s “quantitative inferiority to its neighbors.”The Trump plan once again legitimized in the American discourse the idea of Israel staying in parts of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, after the Obama administration called for negotiations to be based on the ‘67 lines with land swaps. And in Israel, the Jordan Valley as Israel’s eastern border, with all of its security implications, became an often-discussed idea in the triple-election season and the ensuing months, with all the parts of the now-split Blue and White supporting it.In his remarks on Sunday, Netanyahu was very emphatic about the point that Israel would not return to pre-1967 lines, along with evacuating settlements and dividing Jerusalem. That demand “put Israel in existential danger,” he said.Israel would negotiate from now on based on the Trump plan, the prime minister added.To defend Israel on the ground, for there to be any chance of sovereignty happening in the future, and for the diplomatic breakthrough with the UAE to not snowball into territorial concessions from Israel, Netanyahu will have to continue to make it clear that Israel will not go back to pre-1967 lines, period.
