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Why Netanyahu’s West Bank Plans Are Closer to Reality

Why Netanyahu’s West Bank Plans Are Closer to Reality

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- On July 1, 2020, 53 years after Israel defeated three Arab armies and took control of the West Bank, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to begin the process of annexing the Jordan Valley areas and most of the Jewish communities in the territory.

He will do so at the head of a large government coalition that represents two-thirds of the Israelis, and with the blessing of the Americans. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put it simply last week: “The Israelis will ultimately make those decisions.” The State Department said this week it was “ready to approve” Israel’s annexation, though it also asked Israel to engage in further negotiations with the Palestinians.

I am not a great fan of the West Bank. I served there in the army for two years back in the early ‘70s and never concluded that it should become part of Israel. Certainly I never considered living there. I assumed, as most Israelis did at the time, that it would eventually go back to Jordan in return for peace.

That didn’t happen. Jordan was not allowed by the Arab League to negotiate with Israel, let alone make peace. Eventually Jordan’s King Hussein was forced to relinquish his claim to the territory to Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Arafat wanted the West Bank as a first step to liberating all of Palestine, a euphemism for destroying Israel. Battles were fought. Eventually peace agreements were made — and broken. Israel and the Palestinians blamed one another. In truth, there was enough blame to go around.

The arguments haven’t changed much in decades. What has changed is reality. Once, by law, no Israeli Jews lived in the West Bank. Today 400 do. The world thinks of them as religious zealots and at one time that was true, but no longer. Today they are a heterogeneous mix of homeowners who commute to work in nearby Israeli cities.

The Jordan Valley has become Israel’s strategic eastern border. It is these communities and that border area that Israel intends to annex in accordance with the American “Deal of the Century.”

That plan doesn’t leave the Palestinians homeless, as some have suggested. It offers them roughly 70% of the West Bank (and perhaps all of Gaza) for a demilitarized state. Israel can live with that. The Palestinian leadership, so far, cannot. “We will not stand handcuffed if Israel announces the annexation of any part of our land,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said last week. Nobody in Israel is too worried. Abbas has a history of making empty threats.

Why Netanyahu’s West Bank Plans Are Closer to Reality

The European Union opposes any change in the status quo. The French Ambassador to the UN, Nicolas de Riviere, told the Security Council that Israel would pay a price for following through on its plan. “Annexation will not pass unchallenged and shall not be overlooked in our relationship with Israel.” This elicited shrugs in Jerusalem. The future map of the West Bank is not high on the European agenda at the moment.

Abbas has also called upon the Arab League to convene an “Extraordinary Emergency Summit.” Back in 1967, the Arab League had the power to prevent a peace deal between Jordan and Israel. “No negotiation, no negotiation, no peace,” it commanded. Today, the Arab League is a collection of failed states and American dependencies. All it has to offer are half-hearted slogans.

The Palestinian Authority president has some support among anti-occupation Israelis. They are already demonstrating against their perennial arch-enemy, Netanyahu. But this time Bibi is an easy villain. His new coalition includes the center-left Blue and White Party and what remains of the Labor Party. Benny Gantz supports the annexation. Even in the unlikely event that he changes his mind and quits, Netanyahu can take the plan to the Knesset, where it would pass easily.

For Palestinian optimists, marshaling American public opposition is a last resort. This week, a Gallup poll provided a spark of hope:  “55% of Americans favor an independent Palestinian state,” the summary stated. But Trump’s deal contemplates a demilitarized Palestinian state. Many of those the pollsters concluded were supporters of a Palestinian state were simply on board for the Trump-Netanyahu version, as Gallup author Lydia Saad pointed out.

More telling, the poll found that Americans “continue to sympathize more with the Israelis than the Palestinians” by a 60% to 23% margin. Bernie Sanders is not running for president; Joe Biden is. He opposes unilateral Israeli annexation, but he won’t make it a campaign issue and if elected he won’t reverse a fait accompli. That would be seen as an unprecedented act of diplomatic warfare on America’s closest Middle East ally.

Trump could, of course, change Netanyahu’s plans. He is famously fickle (although not on matters concerning Israel). There are administration officials who favor postponing implementation the annexation, but they’re a silent minority and the clock’s ticking.

Abbas might be able to slow it down with a last-minute, good-faith counteroffer but I doubt that he will. I think he believes that Netanyahu and Trump are bluffing. And I think he is wrong.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Zev Chafets is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine.

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