Campaigning to annex parts of the West Bank containing Israeli settlements, 70-year-old Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu faces the ugly reality of consequences to campaign promises. Universally condemned, except with 74-year-old President Donald Trump, Netanyahu should rethink what promises to be self-defeating political move annexing parts of the West Bank. No matter what West Bank settlers want living in Judea and Samaria, ancient biblical lands once part of King David’s kingdom, there’s been a lot of history interceding in the last 2,000 years. Netanyahu knows that Palestinians, with backing from the United Nations, seek an independent state with control of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital. Whether that happens or not, no one knows. Since Yasser Arafat founded of the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] May 28, 1964, it hasn’t happened.
When Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon went to war against Israel June 5-10, 1967, the Six Day War, Israel seized Jordan’s West Bank and East Jerusalem, Egypt’s Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, Syria’s Golan Heights all as spoils of war. Arabs armies, that started the conflict, watched their militaries defeated, leaving Israel fully in control of buffer zones, including territories once controlled by Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula in 1979, signing a peace treaty with Egypt, negotiated by former President Jimmy Carters with Egypt’s late Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. U.N.’s 1967 Resolution 242 called for Israel to return to the pre-Six Day War borders in exchange for peace. Israel’s late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returned the Gaza Strip to Egypt Sept. 21, 2005 but never returned Syria’s Golan Heights, Jordan’s West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Over the last 53 years since the end of the 1967 War, much has happened when it comes to Israel’s national security. Several wars with Hamas militants in Gaza and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, left Israel no choice but to expand buffer zones and build a security fence after years of guerrilla war and suicide bombing, something Palestinians call “resistance” happens periodically. Many attempts at peacemaking, seeking the goal of a Palestinian state, failed because Israelis and Palestinians can’t agree on boundaries of a new state but impossible conditions demanded by Palestinian leadership. When Hamas militants seized the Gaza Strip from the PLO June 10, 2007, Palestinians were divided between Gaza and Ramallah-based PLO. Hamas continues its radical plan to destroy Israel and return Palestinians to their ancestral homes.
Netanyahu’s plan to officially annex parts of the West Bank runs counter to any possible peace plan to divide up spoils of the 1967 War to create a sovereign Palestinian state with recognized U.N. borders. Whatever Netanyahu’s campaign promises West Bank settlers, it doesn’t advance the peace process for Israel to formally annex any territory in Jordan’s former territory. One thing needs to be clear historically, that Palestinians held not one inch of sovereign territory, even though certain families lived inside the former British Mandate of Palestine [1920-1948] or, before that, the Ottoman Turkish controlled of holy land [1516-1920], marking the end of the Ottoman Empire. Whatever biblical claims to the land of Israel, Jews and Arabs lived under Ottoman rule for centuries until, the British turned over the mandate to Israel when it formed a sovereign state May 14, 1948.
Since that time, after Israel’s War of Liberation, some Arabs stayed in Israel but many left voluntarily or were expelled, unable to accept Israel as a sovereign state. Fast forward to Netanyahu’s promise to annex Judea and Samaria, Israeli settlements in parts of the West Bank. Thousands of protesters in historic Jericho, in south of the Jordan Valley, demonstrated today against Netanyahu’s plan to annex parts of the West Bank. When Trump announced his Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan Jan. 28, allowing Israel to annex Judea and Samaria, it was roundly rejected by 82-uyear-old PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas has already broke off relations with the Trump administration for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital Dec. 6, 2017. Abbas has refused to deal with the Trump administration, citing its bias toward Israel. But the real reason Abbas rejects Trump plan is because he’s on the same page as Hamas.
Netanyahu’s plan to annex Israeli settlements in parts of the Jordan Valley is tone deaf to Palestinians hope for a future state. There’s no pressing reason for Israel to annex Judea and Samaria, other than to inflame an already volatile situation. Annexing Israeli settlements does nothing for Israel other than make more enemies with many of its critics looking for anything to complain about. “Today, I joined #EU, #Russia, # China, # Japan, # Jordan to express support to #Palestinian people. My message was simple—do not stray away from the path of non-violence, do no lose hope for a Palestinian state living side-by-side and in peace with #Israel,” U.N. Special Mideast Envoy Nikolay E. Mladenov tweeted. Netanyahu needs to come to his senses that Palestinians need every inch of land to eventually negotiate borders for a future state. There’s no reason Netanyahu can’t be on the same page.
