What's Wrong with Israel's Annexation Plans?

What's Wrong with Israel's Annexation Plans?
By Alan Stein

Variations of this column have been published in the MetroWest Daily News and the Manchester Journal Inquirer.

The first problem with Israel's "annexation" plans is that they have nothing to do with annexation." Annexation applies to the acquisition of territory belonging to another country, which is not the case here. The territory in question, part of what historically was called Judea (in the south) and Samaria (in the north) but was renamed the "West Bank" when it was occupied by Jordan after invading Israel in 1948 and capturing it. Indeed, a strong argument can and has been made by experts in international law that the disputed territory has been sovereign Israeli territory all along.

So, what is actually being considered?

Rather than immediately applying Israeli law to the territory it regained after being attacked again by Jordan in 1967, the Israeli government viewed it as a bargaining chip, offering to give it to Jordan in exchange for peace. Israel set up a military government there and in Gaza, anticipating this artificial arrangement would be short term.

Unfortunately, the Arabs then, like the Palestinian Arabs of today, weren't interested in peace with Israel. Less than three months after the 1967 war, the Arab League met in Khartoum and infamously issued what became known as the "three no's:" no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel and no peace with Israel.

Some of the Jewish families which had been kicked out of their homes by Jordan and Egypt rebuilt them and some Jewish communities returned to Judea and Samaria. A new people, the Palestinians, were created and King Hussein of Jordan renounced any claim to Judea and Samaria. More than a quarter century ago, Israel turned over governance of roughly 95 percent of the Arabs in the disputed territories to the Palestinian Authority and in 2000, 2001 and 2008 offered to give the PA virtually all the disputed territory. Instead of establishing the state the Palestinian Arabs claim they want, the PA effectively revived the infamous three no's of the Arab League and has declared it will never again negotiate directly with Israel.

Meanwhile, the Israeli communities in the disputed territories continue to exist in limbo, subject to the military rule set up in 1967.

All that Israel is really planning is to belatedly end that artificial, temporary situation by applying Israeli law, so that Israelis living in places they'd been kicked out of by Jordan will finally be subject to the laws passed by the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, rather than to military decrees. This is certainly more democratic and cuts down on bureaucracy, since the Israelis living under military rule have double the red tape when dealing with the government.

Concerns have been expressed that if Israel follows through with these changes it will preclude the so-called "two-state solution,"  which has not just been repeatedly rejected by the Palestinian Arabs whom it's designed to benefit, but whose very core concept - two states for two peoples - is something to which Mahmoud Abbas has insisted he will never agree. However, the reality is that nothing Israel does would preclude giving away some of that territory - most of which almost every knowledgeable observer recognizes will remain with Israel under any conceivable peace agreement.

Look at the record.

Israel "annexed" the previously Jordanian-occupied portions of Jerusalem, Israel's capital. Yet that didn't stop at least two prime ministers, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, from offering parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority.

Israel "annexed" its portion of the Golan Heights. Yet that didn't prevent at least two prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin and Benjamin Netanyahu, from offering all of the Golan Heights to Syria. 

And, of course, Jordan "annexed" the entire West Bank when it captured it from Israel. Yet King Hussein subsequently renounced all claims to it.

The Trump peace plan envisions Israel giving away other territory that has indisputably been part of Israel since 1948. Yet that plan has been embraced both by Israel's current and future prime ministers, Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz.

If the Palestinian Arabs ever seriously negotiate with Israel, having portions of the disputed territory being governed by Israeli civilian law will be a non-issue.

In fact, Judea and Samaria have been sovereign Israeli territory since 1948. This is based on at least two separate provisions of international law.

At the San Remo Conference following World War I, the boundaries for territories captured by allies in the war were determined.  The pledges in Britain's Balfour Declaration, calling for a Jewish state in Palestine, were confirmed and later approved by the League of Nations, turning them into international law. They were also incorporated into the founding documents of the United Nations, as successor to the League of Nations. Israel is that Jewish state and the boundaries confirmed at San Remo include all the currently disputed territories and have never been superseded under international law.

Additionally, there is the sacrosanct principle of international law known as uti possidetis juris. Under this principle, when a new state is formed, it retains the internal borders of its previous administrative region. Before Israel was reestablished in 1948, it had been administered by Britain under its League of Nations mandate, all of the western portion of Palestine, including Judea and Samaria, had been treated as a single administrative region, and thus that entire territory legally belonged to Israel.

Regardless of having international law on its side, Israel doesn't want responsibility for the Arabs in the disputed territories. That's why it offered to give them all to Egypt and Jordan in 1967, turned over governance to the Palestinian Authority in 1994 and has repeatedly offered to give the Palestinian Arabs almost all the disputed territory. Any application of Israeli civilian law will not change that and should be treated by others as a non-issue. We should not give the rejectionist Palestinian Authority a veto power over the normalization of life for Israelis living in the disputed territories. Indeed, catering to that intransigence encourages their continued rejection of peace, whether through the so-called "two-state solution" or some other path.

Another way of putting it: the knee-jerk criticism we keep hearing is an obstacle to peace.