Secretary Pompeo Meets with Prime Minister Netanyahu [Wikimedia Commons]

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on April 22, 2020 that Israeli annexation of parts of the disputed Israeli-Palestinian territory, known as the West Bank or Judea and Samaria, would be a decision for the State of Israel to make. While ultimately annexation plans "would have to be greenlighted by the United States,"[1] the eager attitude of Secretary Pompeo—without openly-expressed, public limitations—may not have been beneficial to American or Israeli interests. Many today might appreciate the instances when America respects foreign sovereignty, rather than instances of American intervention. Yet, others may emphasize that unconditional outward approval of wide-reaching actions for an entire region's territorial and political future may be too costly.

Originally, annexation of the Jordan River Valley by referendum vote of Israeli citizens, as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu publicly proposed in September 2019, was reportedly just the beginning of formally released plans.[2] The Jordan Valley is a territory well known to be contested by sparse Palestinian Arab, Bedouin settlement, and Jewish settlement-outpost populations—with only some 21,000 people over 1,236,278 hectares of land (22.3% of the West Bank).[3] The Jordan Valley, like the Green Line “settlement blocs,” has also been acknowledged within previous Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations for decades as a critical strategic asset for Israeli security over the narrow and population-dense Israeli coast that the Jordan River’s mountain ranges overlook.

Over the past year, the Jordan Valley plan emerged as especially relevant amid the backdrop of right-wing party discussions by the likes of Naftali Bennett, attesting in favor of eventual annexing all of Area C of the West Bank. This would include not only the Jewish “settlement blocs” on the Green Line outlining the West Bank and the Jordan Valley, but also (and most significantly) the land gaps between major Palestinian population centers (Areas A and B) and the Jordan Valley. The flirtation with Area C annexation ideas, which may impede or exacerbate the post-Intifada capacity of Palestinians to travel within the West Bank, would very likely divide already limited autonomous Palestinian areas and encourage further separation—or sudden integration—of two very hostile populations.

Take the Jewish outpost of Yitzhar (located deep in the West Bank) and the nearby Palestinian city of Nablus (Shechem), for example. Outposts like Yitzhar are often composed of ideologically-rooted Jewish residents who are both anti-Palestinian and anti-Israel (the state). Just earlier in April 2020 during the Jewish holiday of Pesah (Passover), a group of radical outpost-settler youth from Yitzhar torched parked Palestinian vehicles “while in a military-run (COVID-19) quarantine compound” near the Dead Sea.[4] The Ha’aretz news article describing the incident states:

According to an initial investigation, two Palestinians from Jenin and a third from Haifa, an Israeli citizen, set up their tent in a camping site near the quarantine compound. The settler youth approached them and asked for cigarettes, then returned to the quarantine compound. About 15 minutes later, they came back to the site and began throwing stones at the group of campers and set their two cars ablaze.

While no injuries were reported in the Ha’aretz article, such bellicose actions reflect less reason for Israel or the United States to invest in radical outpost communities, which are illegal under Israeli law and can be destabilizing, often dividing Palestinian towns or otherwise undermining state jurisdiction and elementary law.

Despite the fact that the majority of Israeli citizens today reject unilateral withdrawals from disputed territories, most also oppose the growth of Israeli administrative rule to population-dense Palestinian centers in the West Bank via annexation.[5] Palestinian intransigence coupled with subsidized violence by the Palestinian Authority (PA) through the present, Hamas’s gradual firing of over 30,000 rockets, the development of terror tunnels, and arson assaults on Israeli civilian communities after Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, have proven that unilateral withdrawal is an unsustainable policy. The Israeli response of several periodic military campaigns, coordinated airstrikes, drone assassinations, and a shared Egyptian-Israeli military blockade on Gaza has also reinforced the view that territorial compromises—let alone peace—between Israelis and Palestinians are still out of reach.

Backed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Qatari, Iranian, and international organization funds, the West Bank-dominant Palestinian Authority and Gaza-dominant Hamas have long been dissuaded from achieving an alternative to the status quo in which irredentist and revanchist holdouts are replaced by negotiations with Israel over statehood and land. The condemnation by the Arab League in their April 30th emergency meeting on the Israeli annexation plan may have also signaled the traditionally evasive approach of appealing to the international community in order to coerce Israel into another direction.[6] [7] Prime Minister Netanyahu’s resolved stalemate with electoral rival Benny Gantz and the miraculous agreement on an emergency unity government has only recently procured the necessary preliminary support for the Jordan Valley proposal, which is lukewarm at best.[8] However, given that Gantz’s original Blue and White campaign ran on a match-worthy platform of security policy—as is consistently a requisite in Israel—the consideration of maintained security occupation of West Bank areas, if not annexation, was open and deliberate. Thus, partial annexation in a center-left government would have arguably been probable in that case to some extent as well.

The latest developments have sparked a lot of questions. On May 20, 2020, PA President Mahmoud Abbas declared that the PLO was “absolved” of all security agreements with Israel and the United States, which some may interpret as the natural culmination of Trump’s term-long diplomatic cornering of the Palestinian Authority.[9] Coupled with enduring incitement from PA-sponsored media and education (recently condemned by the EU)[10] and unfazed financial support of terror since the Oslo era, if the Trump administration continues its abundantly consenting approach and the new Israeli unity government follows through with annexation, this declaration could eventually manifest in a complete lack of cooperation needed to quell another intifada or uprising of indeterminable scale.

Abbas’s threat has also faced skepticism with some looking towards PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh’s June 9th press statement as a sudden and desperate heeding of the Israeli-American wake-up call for peace negotiations. Citing previous positions without elaborating too explicitly, PM Shtayyeh reaffirmed that providing financial incentives for Palestinians to accept Israeli annexation is moot and that a two-state solution (submitted to the Quartet), predicated on a demilitarized Palestinian state, with a capital of East Jerusalem and minor border modifications was the PA’s vital counter-offer.[11]

In the same week in June, reports have revealed that US-Israel negotiations to map out borders for the plan have thus far incorporated the majority of the settlements (132 total), far beyond just the Jordan Valley, while excluding at least 25 outposts in PA-controlled areas (some 450,000 settlers to be annexed compared to 2,000 excluded).[12] Letters from the Young Settlement Forum to PM Netanyahu have demanded clarification of the future status of these outpost communities—a question which may not be answered until the scheduled July 1st Knesset vote on the finalized plan (the original proposal of a vote by referendum of Israeli citizens may be expediently out of the question).[13] Supposedly, no civilians, whether Arab or Jewish, are to be uprooted from the “Deal of the Century” or the current annexation plan in the works. A recent statement from PM Netanyahu also hinted that “freedom of movement” and “security control” would be maintained, as in the present.[14] Various figures in the Israeli settler movement have expressed great gratitude for the annexation plan, yet other municipal officials of the settlements have expressed significant reservations and even outright antipathy towards the Trump administration for its “final status” limitations.[15]

Conclusively, for those trying to advocate a less unilateral outcome whereby Israelis and Palestinians reach a meaningful and dignifying compromise, three factors must clearly change. The Netanyahu administration must not ride the high tide of the Trump presidency before ending up with a radical shift towards isolating, partisan support and an indeterminate domestic political future. The Palestinian Authority must not resort to evasive and international coercion to obtain its desired outcomes, lest Israelis double down on their cards since they “have no negotiating partner.”[16] Reciprocally, the international community must refrain from indulging uneven, unilateralist trends originating from blind opposition to either party’s rights. The situation may indeed be complex. However, it’s simple that we need not promote another Lebanese-type sectarian fragmentation, either in spite of one population or due to ideological fantasy. As a secretary for a superpower, Mr. Pompeo should take note.

Sources:

[1] https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/04/22/pompeo-says-annexation-of-west-bank-is-israeli-decision-to-make/?fbclid=IwAR3lVyB_Ur3P06rRkvy166ec7x3H3FvOe7h-juEz6geCRjEDv_rtkmdpMT4

[2] https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Prime-Minister-Netanyahu-expected-to-announce-annexation-of-Jordan-Valley-601207

[3] https://peacenow.org.il/en/data-on-netanyahus-jordan-valley-annexation-map

[4] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-settlers-in-coronavirus-quarantine-attack-palestinian-campers-torch-their-cars-1.8765333?fbclid=IwAR1tXipTMhMe4QmhEX8civhfXGe_BKgJ3L10twvg8GKbGJeB2wlp9yMEf6E

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/12/heres-what-israeli-public-thinks-about-netanyahus-campaign-promise-annex-parts-west-bank/

[6] https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/04/israel-annexation-west-bank-arab-league-pompeo-netanyahu.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[7] https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/04/30/Arab-League-condemns-Israel-s-plan-to-extend-sovereignty-to-parts-of-West-Bank

[8] https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/04/israel-palestinians-jordan-benjamin-netanyahu-donald-trump.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[9] https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/mahmoud-abbas-we-are-no-longer-abiding-by-agreements-with-israel-us-628631

[10] https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/european-parliament-condemns-pa-textbooks-that-promote-hate-and-violence-628522

[11] https://www.timesofisrael.com/pa-prime-minister-says-palestinian-state-will-be-declared-if-israel-annexes-land/?fbclid=IwAR1c2ziYBg_lHn9SuCR49r1QpcfG0UA81p7WBSuRaSUMsmgCmBxtFBkoEEw