After Golan, Netanyahu Will Want the West Bank

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are rarely in accord on anything, but they seem to agree on the implications of U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. One believes—and the other fears—a similar recognition can now be achieved for Israel’s claims in the West Bank.

Delighted by the announcement, Netanyahu compared Trump to three historical figures: Persian King Cyrus, who allowed exiled Jews to return to Zion in Biblical times; British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, whose 1917 declaration granted the Jewish people the right to return; and U.S. president Harry Truman, who recognized the birth of Israel in 1948 over the strenuous objections of his own State Department.

What accounts for this hyperbole? Israel has controlled the Golan Heights since it took them from Syria in the 1967 War. Recognition from Trump is nice, but it doesn’t really change anything on the ground. Netanyahu begs to differ. On his flight home from Washington, a senior Israel briefed reporters on the meaning of Trump’s proclamation. “U.S. recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights proves Israel can retain occupied territories captured in a defensive war,” the official explained. “Everyone says you can’t hold an occupied territory, but, behold, this proves you can.”

Nasrallah put it more directly. “We should expect that Trump will recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the West Bank,” he said in a televised speech, reported on the Naharnet website. “This is a formative and historic moment in the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Netanyahu doesn’t want all of the West Bank. The prime minister has said he will accept a Palestinian “state minus,” an autonomous government in the areas already under Palestinian control. Residents would become Palestinian citizens or revert to their previous Jordanian status. They would be free to choose their own leaders and system of government. The mini-state would be demilitarized: internal security would be in the hands of the local government, but Israeli forces would have the right to enter to thwart terrorism.

Gaza’s future will be dealt with separately. Ideally, Netanyahu would like it to become a quasi-independent entity under Egyptian patronage.

What Netanyahu does want is the Jordan Valley. The part of the West Bank known as Area C where hundreds of thousands of Israelis now live would be annexed. So would East Jerusalem, although not necessarily the refugee camps within the city limits. Arabs within the new borders would be eligible for Israeli citizenship. 

This, more or less, is what Netanyahu intends to put on the table when the Trump administration presents its “Deal of the Century” plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace, sometime after the April 9 Israeli general election. I don’t know the details of the plan, being drafted by Jared Kushner, but it’s a safe bet that Netanyahu does: it is unlikely he would have placed Trump on the Israeli Mt. Rushmore if the plan was not to his satisfaction.

Backing Netanyahu’s vision for the West Bank would require a radical departure from longstanding American diplomatic insistence on an Israeli withdrawal from most, if not all, of the territory. But it is consistent with the new Trump doctrine. The West Bank, like the Golan, is territory won by Israel in a defensive war. And, like the Golan, it is arguably vital to Israeli security.

It goes without saying that the Palestinian leadership—whether Hamas or President Mahmoud Abbas—would reject such a plan out of hand. They will declare it a violation of international law, and take their case to the Arab League, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. Everywhere they will get a sympathetic hearing: many countries and multilateral agencies have rejected the Trump’s Golan announcement. 

This won’t worry Netanyahu any more than it bothers the Trump administration. The Arab League is barely breathing; these days, its key members seem keener on an alliance with Israel against Iran than in the Palestinian cause. The U.S. has a veto at the Security Council. Trump and Putin are looking to make a wider deal that will include not only Israel-Palestine but a future division of their spheres of influence in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. This is a deal that Bibi, who has close relations with both leaders and firm ideas about shaping the region, would like to broker. Asked about the negative reception the Golan initiative received from the EU and other American allies, Secretary of State Pompeo pronounced himself “saddened,” but predicted that the world would eventually come around and recognize reality.

The Trump administration is intent on turning its policy into a reality that will not be easily reversed—as it did by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Soon enough, the “Deal of the Century” will trash 50 years of conventional wisdom.  Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas and the leaders of the Palestinian Authority are right to be worried.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bobby Ghosh at aghosh73@bloomberg.net

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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