Can Netanyahu trade halting annexation for erasing the ’67 line?
Netanyahu urged patience for the process to play itself out. Then he shored up his speech with some shoe leather politics.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFIsraeli youth demonstrate as they call on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare sovereignty over Israel's settlements in the West Bank, in Jerusalem February 13, 2020(photo credit: RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS)
Annexation only after the Palestinians fail to come to the negotiating table?Wait, when and how did that concept suddenly become the path to sovereignty?But there it was on Monday night, slipped so smoothly by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into public discourse during a Jerusalem press conference, that he made it sound almost as if this was the plan all along.But wasn’t it just two months ago that Israel woke up on July 1 and expected that Netanyahu would make the dramatic announcement that all West Bank settlements would be annexed to Israel?And that wasn’t even the first deadline.It was the second. At the end of January 2020, there was this moment when sovereignty supporters believed that under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, Israel could annex 30% of the West Bank, and this amounted to half of Area C, where all the settlements are located. They believed that Israel could do so imminently, and then after four years, if the Palestinians failed to come to the table, Israel’s footprint could possibly expand into all of Area C.Then sovereignty supporters were told they could annex, just based on a US plan and not until July 1. Then sovereignty was suspended in August, as a prerequisite to a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.But the bad news kept rolling as US special adviser Jared Kushner made it clear that annexation was off the table for now, telling reporters in the UAE that it remained “an option,” a word that implies that it is no longer a sure thing.On Monday night, Netanyahu doused concern with assurances that annexation was still on the agenda, but later. How much later? Not until after attempts to bring Palestinians to the table had failed, effectively sovereignty has now been moved from the start of a peace process to the end. “With regard to the application of sovereignty in an independent way, if the Palestinians don’t come [to the table],” Netanyahu said, adding, “I have not taken it off the agenda.”Then Netanyahu offered conciliation prizes in an attempt to reframe the process, noting that what was most important here was that the idea of forcing Israel to return to the pre-1967 lines was no longer on the table and that no settlers would be evacuated.He urged patience for the process to play itself out. Then he shored up his speech with some shoe leather politics.On Tuesday, he visited the West Bank settlement of Mevo Horon for the first day of school.Once upon a political time, it would have been enough to assuage his critics.His smile and handshake, indeed his very presence across the Green Line, would have underscored for the Right the importance of the West Bank settlements to his policy agenda.In past years, a prime minister’s visit to a settlement could have hinted at sovereignty – particularly on the first day of school. It showed that the children of Judea and Samaria were just as entitled to a visit from a head of state as any Israeli child within sovereign Israel.Such symbolism was not limited to schools when it came to scoring points with the Right. All other days of the year, a prime minister can plant a tree to illustrate Jewish roots in the biblical heartland, cut a ribbon or pour cement for a new building or speak passionately about not uprooting settlements.During the eight-year tenure of former US president Barack Obama, such acts could even be viewed as diplomatic defiance, with the brave underdog Israeli prime minister thumbing his nose at American policy makers.The timing was designed for drama here too. Netanyahu’s Mevo Horon visit could have been seen as a subtle form of opposition, given that it took place as an Israeli delegation wrapped up its historic visit to the UAE to lay the groundwork for the peace deal between the two nations.While UAE Foreign Ministry Director of Policy Planning Jamal al-Musharakh told reporters that Israel’s agreement not to annex settlements was a prerequisite to a deal, Netanyahu sat in a settlement and spoke about the peace that would come about between the two countries because of the deal.It was as if to remind everyone that Israel can both make peace with the UAE and have sovereignty over the settlements, even if Netanyahu never mentioned that word during his public appearance in the school.But the days of subtle symbolism have come and gone for Netanyahu.The stakes have risen to such heights that his visit Tuesday to the Mevo Horon settlement, even with its talk of UAE peace, didn’t even cause a ripple.It is not even clear how much of an impact it might have made if Netanyahu spoke of sovereignty.The pro-sovereignty supporters who want action now, which includes parliamentarians and ministers from his Likud Party, politicians from the Yamina Party and leaders in the settlement movement, are at the point where only action can suffice.And the only action they have seen is the sudden return to the Obama-era paradigm of quiet freezes and threats of an outpost evacuation due to a court ruling.To make matters worse, the UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed spoke on Monday night of a Palestinian state at the pre-1967 lines.Beit El Council head Shay Alon said that what is needed now, if not annexation, is de facto annexation. This means that there should be as much activity as possible with regard to settlement building, which would show that life has moved forward on the path to normalization.Absent that, Netanyahu can speak all he wants about the end of a two-state vision based on the pre-1967 lines. On the ground in the West Bank, the settlers feel a sudden and very dramatic return to the possibility that the pre-1967 line has been resurrected.
