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Is It Time for Israel to Annex Some West Bank Territory? — Judith Levy
As you’ve probably read, John Kerry has stated outright that it’s Israel’s fault that the so-called peace process ran aground, though State is frantically backpedalling. (See John Podhoretz’s column in the New York Post for a pithy response to the “deceitful, pompous, self-righteous and vindictive fool”.) Rather than rehash the failure of the talks, let’s take a look at a proposed new way forward.
Member of Knesset Naftali Bennett is the leader of Bayit Hayehudi (The Jewish Home), a right-wing party that secured 12 seats in the last election. Bennett has taken the occasion of the most recent failure of negotiations to reassert one of the platforms on which he ran his campaign: that Israel should unilaterally annex a sizeable chunk of the West Bank:
All 350,000 of the Jews in Judea and Samaria live in Area C, some 60% of the area. Of the Palestinians in the West Bank, 97% live in Area A, which is under full Palestinian control, and Area B, which is under Palestinian civil control and Israeli military control.
“It is clear that the diplomatic process has run its course and that we are entering a new era,” Bennett wrote Netanyahu. “We have been hitting our heads against the wall of negotiations over and over again for years and we kept getting surprised when the wall did not break. The time has come for new thinking.”
Bennett launched a public relations initiative Wednesday for his “Settlement Blocs First” plan, which calls for annexing blocs such as Ariel, Gush Etzion, Ma’aleh Adumim, Beit El-Ofra and communities that overlook Ben-Gurion Airport. He explained his plan on CNN Wednesday night and intends to push it to the international community.
Bennett is controversial — he has been criticized for saying, among other things, that Arab terrorists should be shot — but his stance on annexation, which was once a fringe position, now resonates for more Israelis than it used to. One does not need to live in the settlements, or even to sympathize particularly with those who do, to have lost patience with a Palestinian leadership that no longer even troubles to conceal its bad faith, and which seems to have as much contempt for its American cheerleaders and the sympathetic Israeli left as it does for Israelis like Bennett.
Annexation would be a bold move, to say the least, but there is a certain bravura appeal in the disregard it displays for world opinion. And Bennett’s timing makes sense: Kerry’s “the Israelis blew it” position demonstrates yet again the inevitability that Israel will be blamed for the failure of peace negotiations, no matter what shticklach the other side pulls:
A Hebrew video with subtitles in multiple languages that the Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs minister released explained why the plan could be practical. It says that the international community does not recognize Israel’s annexation of eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, so annexing part of the West Bank would just add another thing for the world to complain about.
The three-staged plan starts with annexing Area C and offering citizenship to its Palestinians.
It calls for giving the Palestinians upgraded autonomy in Areas A and B. The third stage is massive investment in Palestinian areas to improve their quality of life and improve their lives.
“We should be taking a bottom- up strategy rather than creating an artificial state in the heart of Israel,” a source close to Bennett said.
Now this might, of course, prove hopeless: for all the plan’s bracing practicality and neat handling of the demographic problem, it’s not necessarily in Israel’s best interest to entrench her position as pariah state even more solidly than it is already. We’ll see how far this goes.
Still, the landscape is not quite the same as it was before the most recent collapse of the talks. Abbas’s position in particular grows ever more tenuous. Israel is said to be turning her attention away from him and toward his bitter rival Mohammad Dahlan, and to be “seeking rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt in its attempts to make Dahlan the point person for any future dialogue with the Palestinian Authority.” According to the Jerusalem Post, this prospect makes the Americans very uncomfortable, because “the aforementioned Arab states are currently in conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood – and involving these parties in negotiations would incorporate Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, into the greater regional conflict.”
It would likely come as a surprise to Hamas to learn that it is not already incorporated into the greater regional conflict. One would have thought greater leverage against the Gazan thugocracy was a good thing, not a bad thing, when permanent status negotiations are in process. That’s not how they see it at State, but anxious sound bytes emanating from Foggy Bottom don’t emanate quite as far as they used to. Of course, that might have been President Obama’s goal all along, in which case, mission accomplished.
Never a dull moment. Stay tuned.
Image of sign marking entrance to Area A — “Entrance to Israeli Citizens Is Forbidden” — via Huffington Post.
Published in General
Valiuth,
Israel was attacked as it formed. In 1967, Israel launched a strike on Egyptian Air Force (June 5), following Egyptian naval blockade of the Straits of Tiran (May 22) and Egyptian military buildup in the Sinai Peninsula (May 16). Apparently, you seem to think that going first means you lose the moral high ground. I don’t. Should Israel not have moved forward?
Israel has faced no less than 5 wars of annihilation its short modern history, all waged by its neighbors, Arab states.
Also, at the stroke of midnight upon the UN mandate that created Israel, every Muslim state from North Africa to Iran expelled its Jewish communities.
Don’t talk to me about what is “fair” where Israel is concerned. “Fair” would be the expulsion of every Muslim from any territory they control. They would launch unprovoked wars of annihilation on the Arab world.
Israel has shown all sorts of constraint that is not “fair” compared to what they have suffered.
Further,
All that matters is power between nations. There is no such thing a international law. There are treaties that are followed by choice.
Law inside a state is different. The whole point of a republic is that people protect their rights through limited government. People pool their power to stop others from trampling their rights.
It does not work that way between nations. All that matters is power to back yourself up.
You do know that there are also Arab (and Palestinian) Christians, right? How do they fit into your view of events?
So in this case are two states involved or just one? If “The whole point of a republic is that people protect their rights through limited government.” Are Palestinians part of an Israeli Republic or part of “power between nations?”
Depends.
Some of them are Israeli citizens though arguably de facto second class wrt housing and economic access, the ones on the West Bank are not Israeli citizens but still essentially governed to varying degrees by the Israeli State, and the ones in Gaza are self governing but their borders (so all travel and the international trade aspect of economic life) are controlled by the Israeli State (which allows very little travel, limited imports and basically no exports from the Gazan economy).
If we take a couple things as given; that Israel has executive control of the Palestinian territory and that it won’t relinquish control anytime soon. Then, it seems the central question is, does Israel have a final goal to work towards or is the current situation/trajectory satisfactory?
The Arab Christians are clearly not considered to be citizens with the same right as Arab Muslims. They are not part of the Arab-Muslim culture, and frankly, I think using “Arab” as a short cut to mean “Arab-Muslim” is not unreasonable.
However, as the people of Iran are not “Arab” at all, I will henceforth use the term “Muslim”, since that is who I am talking about.
The Muslim run countries, to a one, if in Israel’s position of power, would wipe Israel out. Israel does not do so because her people do not choose that path. The people of the Muslim nations would. Iran has promised to nuke Israel just as soon as it can, for instance.
Christians in Muslim countries are clearly 2nd class citizens, not “arguably” so. There are no Jews in Muslim to be 2nd class citizens as they were all kicked out.
There are some people here who refused to understand or are debating from ignorance, that the Israelis are not out to oppress their Arab neighbors. It is Israel defending herself. They left Gaza and the Arab muslims immediately launched an attack on Israel, thus the wall to keep terrorist out, control of the sea trying to keep weapons out of Gaza.
The Arabs on the Golan Heights have been invited to apply for Israeli citizenship, but for the most part they refuse because of fear that Syria might retake the area and they would be considered traitors to Islam. The Christians who apply for citizenship get it, but they are being threatened by the muslims as being traitors to the Arabs. The Christians are now claiming to be Armenians not Arabs, which was forced upon them when they were conquered by the Arabs.
In my opinion, after 66 years of this taqiyya deception, I’d throw the whole lot of the trouble makers to the east side of the Jordan River, into the territory they were allotted in the first place. A choice to live in harmony or get out.
There are just about no Jews left in Arab countries today (including in Maronite dominated Lebanon from the 1950s) but the country with the second highest number of Jews in the Middle East after Israel today is….Iran. (I know. Unpredictable.) Followed by the other non-Arab in the room, Turkey. Seeing a pattern?
Wrt Palestinian Christians – you sidestep the question. If Israel takes their land (it has) and they’re consequently as opposed to Israel as similarly disadvantaged Palestinian Muslims, how do you square this with your view of the conflict being an essentially religious one between Muslims and Jews and not a more understandable one between Palestinians (Muslims, Christians and Druze) and Israelis about land?
Except all those Gulf monarchies who are now cozying up to Israel as bulwark against fellow Muslim country Iran. Sometimes life is a just a little less two dimensional, no matter how rhetorically convenient and theologically neat that would be, jmho.
Re Christian Arabs – Christians are not equal to Muslims in societies run according to Sharia – a distressingly increasing number. Arab Christians, perhaps as a consequence of this, have (except, briefly [and disastrously] in Lebanon) placed themselves at the heart of Arab Nationalism (which competed with pan-Muslim nationalism) – ranging from academics like Albert Hourani and Edward Said to corrupt functionaries like Saddam Hussain’s Tariq Aziz to ‘identities’ like Mrs Suha Arafat.
It might be ‘neater’ to dismiss 10% of the population, but life is messy and often refuses to cooperate. (Good thing too.)
I do get that Israel would prefer not to oppress Arabs – who needs the headaches? – but the preferred option seems to be the Arabs giving up their rights and just being somewhere else – and seems pretty unrealistic.
Re Gaza – What’s the point of limiting exports from Gaza? Or for limiting the import of things like fresh coriander or school notebooks for many years? What do either of these achieve? They’ve got to achieve something, right, otherwise Israel wouldn’t do/have done them. What was it?
The book also discusses how the demographic issue is a myth. It is actually long past time for Israel to assert its sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria. Just get it over with, rather than leaving a remnant PA territory for the UN and campus judenhassers to rally behind.
I don’t understand how the demographic issue is a myth if there are 4 million Palestinians the majority of whom want to see the dissolution of a Jewish state. Integration seems impossible and expulsion reprehensible.
I agree except on the reprehensible part.
We did it to the Tories. Israel can do it to the Palestinians. Let their Muslim brothers take them and support them.
The religious conflict is Muslims and the rest of the world.
The whole problem with the Middle East is Islam. Everywhere that they gain power, chaos, violence and war follows.
Israel should expel the refugees and take the territory they control as theirs.
You can’t nullify 4 million people’s property rights because of their religion. I mean, I guess you can but it seems reprehensible to me. Also, Palestinians as a group are not religiously or politically homogeneous.
Tell the 6 million Jew that who lost their property and lives during WWII, and the other 900,000 Jewish refugees who were expelled from their countries when Israel became a state. You obviously know nothing about Islam because they are most certainly religiously and politically homogeneous.
The few who are not want to immigrate to Israel and are mostly prevented from doing so by the PLO. In the meantime, approximately 40,000 Palestinians a year manage to immigrate to other countries. Plus nobody is really suggesting property rights be nullified, they are talking about establishing Israeli law in Judea and Samaria. Which in turn keeps the dictator and his minions from taking it all from their people.
I know both an atheist and an Orthodox Christian from Palestine. I have been assured that they are not the only ones. I was referring to Bryan’s suggestion that Palestinians should be expelled, which also counts in my boook as a nullification of property rights.
No one shoots rockets to Russia from Crimea or from anywhere.
Tough cookies.. They lost the war.
Nullification of property rights is a concept internal to nations. When you lose a war, you might just lose property. Don’t go to war with someone.
Heck, they could have their own country, but they refuse to, you know, stop shooting rockets into Israel. They are at war now!
Push them out, let their brothers in Islam care for them (which they don’t), and take the land.
Bryan G. Stephens:
“Tough cookies.. They lost the war.”
Your “they” in that sentence leaves a lot to be desired I think our definitions of who “they” constitutes are considerably different. I tend to view the majority of Palestinians as having been swept along by world events, while you insist they are active combatants in a war.
Bryan G. Stephens:
“Heck, they could have their own country, but they refuse to, you know, stop shooting rockets into Israel.”
I agree with this. If Israel felt secure there would be peace tomorrow.
Bryan G. Stephens:
“Push them out, let their brothers in Islam care for them (which they don’t), and take the land.”
This is neither desirable nor realistic. Their “brothers” are not their “brothers” and entirely incapable of taking care of themselves let alone four million refugees. It seems to me a hard sell that Israel should start a war or expulsion without its basic security in immediate danger.
Israel did precisely that to the local peasants in 1948, including to the Palestinian Christians. I still don’t see how that makes the conflict about Islam rather than about property rights, land and ethnic cleansing.
Israel takes Christian Palestinians’ land (among others’) to found the State and resettle Jewish refugees from Europe. You say the problem is obviously Islam.
It’s hard to follow your logic.
But that’s what happened (based on ethnicity) in 1948. If it was okay then, why isn’t it okay now? If not okay now, how come okay then?
Y’all are arguing as post-modernists, whereas I am coming from a historical approach.
History will bear me out, because you cannot have peace with people that do not want peace. As long as there are Palestiniens, there will be conflict, because they want the conflict. These are the people that shots guns in the air and danced in joy on 9-011-2001. They fire rockets into Israel and reject every peace offer.
I am a total war, sort of guy. Don’t fight unless you have to, and if you have to, destroy the enemy forever. The Allies did not do that in WWI, and we got WWII. Israel did not force these people’s parents out when the took the territory, and they have had a slow bleed since.
You might not like those facts, but they are facts.
As far as Islam is concerned, it is the link between all the terrorists we are fighting around the world.
The situation in 1948 was directly after a street war in which two of the combatants were dueling militias. Expelling Palestinians now would be a concerted action, with national sanction, unnecessary for either the formulation or security of the state. You might disagree with the decisions of 1948, but surely its a different situation.
“If Israel felt secure there would be peace tomorrow.”
If the Arabs/muslims put down their weapons and stopped trying to destroy the Jews there would be peace today. If the Jews laid down their means of self defense, they would all be dead tomorrow. It has nothing to do with how Jews feel. It has to do with facts. The muslims want us dead, all over the world.
I should have said, “If Israel was free from threat there would be peace tomorrow.” That is what I meant.
People don’t want to face that fact at all. They want to draw lines between combatants and non-combatants. That is not how this clash of civilizations is playing out.