Israel wants gradual annexation now, US wants it all at once later

The Prime Minister's Office drafted maps of eventual Israeli territory in West Bank to bring to US for review.

By LAHAV HARKOV
U.S. President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deliver joint remarks on a Middle East peace plan proposal in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., January 28, 2020 (photo credit: REUTERS/JOSHUA ROBERTS)
U.S. President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deliver joint remarks on a Middle East peace plan proposal in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., January 28, 2020
(photo credit: REUTERS/JOSHUA ROBERTS)
MOSCOW - The mixed messages between Israel and the US on when settlement annexation will take place were because Israel pursued a two-step process, whereas the US wants one, complete step, a senior source in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s delegation explained.
“What we achieved is great. An American president says he recognizes Israel’s right to apply sovereignty to the Jordan Valley, to 30% of Judea and Samaria,” the source said on the flight from Russia to Israel. “The problem is a technical one.”
Earlier in the week, Netanyahu said he would bring the annexation of settlements and the Jordan Valley to a cabinet vote on Sunday, and then his office said it would be later next week. Meanwhile, Special Advisor to the President Jared Kushner said in a number of television interviews that annexation would only happen after a new Israeli government is formed.
Israel has already drafted maps and other materials which they need to bring before the Americans to be reviewed, the source on Netanyahu’s plane said.
“We think some of the work is fast and easy. That’s why we want to do it already. We’ll show it to them,” the source stated.
Israel sees annexation as a two-part process. There’s the “easy part,” according to the senior source, applying Israeli law to settlements, which are already mapped out, and Israel sought to annex immediately. Then there is the “really not easy” part, which is drawing the lines for the broader territory.
“This needs work on creating accurate maps. We said we should do it in stages so that we can make progress on what Israel and the Americans want to achieve,” he said. “The Americans don’t want to have to repeat the same argument” at each stage of the process.
On the tarmac at Andrews Air Base outside Washington on Wednesday, as Netanyahu headed to Moscow to meet with US President Donald Trump, the prime minister dodged questions about annexing settlements amid reports that he was backing down from earlier promises of applying Israeli sovereignty next week to the municipalities in the West Bank.
“Everything will be alright,” Netanyahu said when asked about annexation.
Netanyahu departed from Washington, where US President Donald Trump presented his peace plan.
As Netanyahu was en route to Russia, Kushner gave an interview to Gzero World in which he said: “The hope is that they’ll wait until after the election, and we’ll work with them to try to come up with something.”
Asked if the Trump administration will support Israel if they annex immediately, Kushner said no, that the expectation is that they form “a technical team to start studying, taking the conceptual map” immediately, and then “we have a couple of months to turn [the map] into a document that we can both feel good about.”
“The Jordan Valley can mean a lot of different things...I want to make sure that we have all the parameters defined and that we also have a situation where we also know what the freeze is” of construction outside existing settlements, Kushner added.
“I think we’d need an Israeli government in place in order to move forward, but we’ll see what happens,” he said.
Netanyahu said in the immediate aftermath of the plan’s rollout that a cabinet vote on annexation of settlements and the Jordan Valley would take place on Sunday, specifying that it was the first of a two-step process. He also said at the time that it would take work from his staff to set the exact parameters of what Israel would be annexing.
The Prime Minister’s staff is “working hard on preparing the decision” to be voted on, a source in the PMO said on Wednesday. “This is complex work that includes, among other things, maps and aerial photos and we hope to finish as soon as possible.”


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