Why Netanyahu should abandon the rhetoric of Palestinian land annexation

Israel claims annexation of areas of the West Bank and Jordan Valley will strengthen security, but analysts say it is more about exploiting key agricultural sites. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 01 July 2020
Follow

Why Netanyahu should abandon the rhetoric of Palestinian land annexation

  • Even Israeli experts question their prime minister’s logic of grabbing the Jordan Valley and parts of the West Bank
  • For Palestinians, Jordan Valley is an integral part of their future state due to its strategic location and fertile lands

AMMAN: Will the summer of 2020 see Israel make good on its threats to annex more parts of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley? If the US-Israeli coordination on President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan since January is any indication, the answer could very well be “yes.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during the election campaign in September 2019, said Israel will annex the Jordan Valley and impose its sovereignty over West Bank settlements for security concerns in the long run.

Around half a million Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to Israeli sources.

UN data show there are 31 Jewish-only settlements built in the Jordan Valley, most of which are agriculture-based, with around 8,000 settlers. Since its occupation in 1967, Israel has set up some 90 military posts in the area and forcibly evicted around 50,000 Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s declaration found support in Washington as the White House announced its much-talked-about “Vision for Peace, Prosperity and a Brighter Future for Israel and the Palestinian People.”

With Netanyahu at his side and no Palestinians in the room, Trump and his son-in-law cum senior advisor, Jared Kushner, outlined last year a detailed plan that envisioned a demilitarized Palestinian entity without East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley (with the exception of the city of Jericho). It showed all Israeli settlements and the north Dead Sea as part of Israel.

According to the Trump Peace Plan — mockingly dubbed the “deal of the century” — three land plots in the Negev desert were to be granted to Palestinians as part of a unilateral land swap.

The idea of annexation of Palestinian territories has been an integral part of Israeli planning since the June 1967 war. Shortly after Israel occupied the West Bank (including Jerusalem) and Gaza in the war, it began the process of a takeover.
 

Opinion

This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

The Israeli government of 1967, headed by Levi Eshkol of the Labor Party, carried out the first annexation, less than three weeks after the occupation. On June 27, 1967, the Israeli Knesset, its national legislature, decided that the “law, jurisdiction and administration of the State of Israel government shall extend to any area of ‘Eretz Israel’ it so orders.”

Therefore, Israeli law extended to cover all parts of East Jerusalem, giving civilians a legal status different from those in the rest of the Occupied Territories.

According to Khalil Tafakji, director of the Arab Studies Society in Jerusalem, the annexation and its justification took root in the first weeks of the occupation after the 1967 war. “Once they annexed East Jerusalem, they eyed other parts to incorporate with Israel,” he said.

Israel drew up many plans under its various leaders, including the Yigal Allon Jordan Valley plan, Ariel Sharon’s separation plan and Avigdor Lieberman’s plan of people exchange, said Tafakji.

“All these plans have been aimed at unpopulated lands, in true commitment to Zionist principles of wanting land without people. Ultimately, these plans, like the current one by Netanyahu, are meant to deny the Palestinians their statehood,” he told Arab News.

Israel’s initial annexation attempts were incorporated into what is known as the Allon Plan. Yigal Allon, who was an army general turned minister shortly after the 1967 war, suggested annexing most of the Jordan Valley, from the river to the eastern slopes of the West Bank hill ridge; East Jerusalem; and the Etzion bloc, a cluster of Jewish settlements located directly south of Jerusalem.

In Allon’s plan, the remaining parts of the West Bank, containing most of the Palestinian population, were to become Palestinian autonomous territory or would return to Jordan, including a corridor to Jordan through Jericho. Jordan’s King Hussein rejected the plan.

Israel’s annexation plans for the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea area, according to Tafakji, “encompass over 30 per cent of the occupied West Bank.”

In 1993, under the Declaration of Principles signed between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the state of Israel at the White House, the West Bank was divided into three areas: Area A under Palestinian control; Area B under Palestinian control and Israeli security control, forming about 22 percent of the West Bank; and Area C under full Israeli control, consisting of over 60 percent of the West Bank’s 5,655-square-kilometer area.

Israel’s expansionism could mean imposing its control over the entire eastern part of the West Bank and cutting off all geographical contiguity with the rest of the territory, says Tafakji.

“The annexation is aimed at exploiting large agricultural areas and allowing Israel to invest in them, building more settlements and legalizing settler outposts, and not for security reasons as it claims, because it already has a peace agreement with Jordan,” he said.

A big stumbling block in Israel’s plans for further annexation is the Palestinian city of Jericho in the West Bank. According to Khaled Ammar, author and film producer and a long-time Jericho resident, during the historic negotiations of the Oslo Accords (1993 and 1995), Palestinian leader and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat insisted that the first leg of the Israeli army withdrawal should include all of Gaza and the Jericho governorate.

In the wake of the Oslo agreements, the Palestinians wrested back administrative control of Jericho from the Israel security over what is listed as Area A in the city as well as in the nearby water-rich Jordan Valley town of Ouja, which has a sweet water spring.

For Palestinians, the Jordan Valley, which is located in the east of the West Bank on the border with Jordan, is a vital and integral part of their future state due to its strategic location and fertile lands.
 

 

“Not only is Jericho the bridge city to Jordan and to the rest of the world, Jericho and its population have become a thorn in Israel’s side as it tries to take the land without its people,” Ammar told Arab News. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics lists the population of Jericho governorate at 52,000 Palestinians.

Though the July 1 deadline for annexation is now said to be neither “sacred” nor urgent, Israel’s intent has drawn global concern. According to a post by the BBC, the Israeli plans “could result in some 4.5% of Palestinians in the West Bank living in enclaves within the annexed territory.”

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said that Israel has declared about 20 percent of the area as natural reserves, taken over large areas in the north of the Jordan Valley to build the separation wall, and used 56 percent of its area for military purposes.

A Palestinian government settlement watchdog said that any annexation would leave 19 communities in the Jordan Valley, home to 3,700 Palestinians, at risk of forced displacement or being disenfranchised.

Netanyahu, however, has said that Israeli sovereignty will not be applied to Palestinians in the Jordan Valley, and reports say the same exclusion will be extended to Palestinians in other annexed parts of the West Bank. Given Israel’s past record, there is little assurance to be found in this statement.

Twitter: @daoudkuttab


Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

Updated 7 sec ago
Follow

Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

GENEVA: More than 100 patients including children suffering from trauma injuries and chronic diseases will be evacuated from Gaza on Wednesday in a rare transfer out of the war-ravaged enclave, a World Health Organization official said.
“These are ad hoc measures. What we have requested repeatedly is a sustained medevac (medical evacuation) outside of Gaza,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, adding that 12,000 people were awaiting transfer.
The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel before flying to the United Arab Emirates, he added, and then a portion will travel to Romania.

Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

Updated 05 November 2024
Follow

Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

  • In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security

DUBAI: Two French citizens detained in Iran since May 2022 are in good health and being held in good detention conditions, Iran’s judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Tuesday, according to state media.
Last month, France’s foreign ministry said the conditions that three of its nationals were being held in by Iran were unacceptable.
“According to the relevant authorities, these two people have good conditions in the detention center and are in good health, so any claim regarding their conditions being abnormal is rejected,” Jahangir said.
The spokesperson was referring to Cecile Koehler and Jacques Paris, who he said were arrested on charges of espionage and will have their next court hearing on Nov. 24.
Jahangir did not mention the third French national detained in Iran. French media have disclosed only his first name, Olivier.
In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security.
Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests.


Israeli airstrikes kill at least 30 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

Updated 05 November 2024
Follow

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 30 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

  • Airstrikes in Gaza kill at least 30, Palestinian medics and media say
  • Israeli military says it ‘eliminated terrorists’ in latest operations

CAIRO: Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 30 Palestinians since Monday night, Palestinian media and medics said on Tuesday, as the Israeli army tightened its siege on northern areas of the enclave.
An airstrike damaged two houses in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, where the army has carried out new operations since Oct. 5, and killed at least 20 people late on Monday, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA and Hamas media said.
The Gaza health ministry did not immediately confirm the toll. Four other people were killed in the central Gazan town of Al-Zawayda around midnight on Monday, medics said.
Palestinian health officials said six people had also been killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah in the central area of the narrow enclave.
The Israeli military said, without giving details, that its forces had “eliminated terrorists” in the central Gaza Strip and Jabalia area. Israeli troops had also located weapons and explosives over the past day in the southern Rafah area, where “terrorist infrastructure sites” had been eliminated, it said.
Palestinians said the new attacks and Israeli orders for people to evacuate were aimed at emptying two northern Gaza towns and a refugee camp to create buffer zones.
Israel says its forces have killed hundreds of Palestinian gunmen and dismantled military infrastructure in Jabalia in the past month.
More than 43,300 Palestinians have been killed in more than a year of war in Gaza, the authorities in Gaza say, and much of the territory has been reduced to ruins.
The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.


Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

Updated 05 November 2024
Follow

Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

PORT SUDAN: Ten civilians were killed in the central Sudanese state of Al-Jazira, pro-democracy activists said on Tuesday, in an attack they blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The Madani Resistance Committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across the country, said the RSF carried out the killings on Monday night in the village of Barborab, about 85 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of the state capital Wad Madani.


Gaza aid situation not much improved, US says as deadline for Israel looms

Updated 05 November 2024
Follow

Gaza aid situation not much improved, US says as deadline for Israel looms

  • Washington told Israel on Oct. 13 it had 30 days to take steps to address humanitarian crisis in Gaza
  • Israel on Monday announced cancelling agreement with UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA)

WASHINGTON: Israel has taken some measures to increase aid access to Gaza but has so far failed to significantly turn around the humanitarian situation in the enclave, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday, as a deadline set by the US to improve the situation approaches.
The Biden administration told Israel in an Oct. 13 letter it had 30 days to take specific steps to address the dire humanitarian crisis in the strip, which has been pummeled for more than a year by Israeli ground and air operations that Israel says are aimed at rooting out Hamas militants.
Aid workers and UN officials say humanitarian conditions continue to be dire in Gaza.
“As of today, the situation has not significantly turned around. We have seen an increase in some measurements. We’ve seen an increase in the number of crossings that are open. But just if you look at the stipulated recommendations in the letter, those have not been met,” Miller said.
Miller said the results so far were “not good enough” but stressed that the 30-day period had not elapsed.
He declined to say what consequences Israel would face if it failed to implement the recommendations.
“What I can tell you that we will do is we will follow the law,” he said.
Washington, Israel’s main supplier of weapons, has frequently pressed Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza since the war with Hamas began with the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.
The Oct. 13 letter, sent by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, said a failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing the measures on aid access may have implications for US policy and law.
Section 620i of the US Foreign Assistance Act prohibits military aid to countries that impede delivery of US humanitarian assistance.
Israel on Monday said it was canceling its agreement with the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), citing accusations that some UNRWA staff had Hamas links.
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said Israel had scaled back the entry of aid trucks into the Gaza Strip to an average of 30 trucks a day, the lowest in a long time.
An Israeli government spokesman said no limit had been imposed on aid entering Gaza, with 47 aid trucks entering northern Gaza on Sunday alone.
Israeli statistics reviewed by Reuters last week showed that aid shipments allowed into Gaza in October remained at their lowest levels since October 2023.