Annexation Law Gains Momentum

by Eitam Abadi, Indy News Israel April 27/11

Parliamentary initiatives to annex territories won from Jordan during the 1967 Six Day War have been gaining traction in recent weeks as the Western-backed Palestinian Authority continues its threats to unilaterally declare a state in these territories this September at the United Nations General Assembly.

National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau (Yisrael Beiteinu) raised the idea of annexation at a party convention in Jerusalem two weeks ago and has since been granting interviews on the subject to the local and foreign press, including CNN, which approached Landau to discuss the matter on Tuesday.

“We’ll have to protect ourselves,” he said. “If [the Palestinians Authority declares a state], I’m going to suggest to my government to extend our sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and over the highly populated blocs we have in Judea and Samaria, just to start with.”

Landau and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein (Likud) are slated to speak at a rally for annexing the Judea and Samaria regions at the Knesset next month. Top academics and former foreign minister Moshe Arens are also expected address the event, which is being organized by freshman Likud lawmaker Danny Danon.

“A Palestinian [Authority] declaration of statehood would officially bury the Oslo Accords, which state that final borders will be decided via negotiations and that unilateral actions constitute violation of the accords,” Danon said.

“The Palestinians declaring a state would free us of all the diplomatic, security and economic commitments we made in the Oslo Accords.”

Danon favors responding to a PA declaration of statehood by annexing all of Area C, which includes all of the Jewish cities, towns and villages throughout Judea and Samaria, as well as all the vast empty lands throughout Israel’s heartland. Danon said his party leader, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, should follow the example of his predecessors Levi Eshkol, who annexed the eastern, northern and southern areas of Jerusalem, and Menachem Begin, who annexed the Golan Heights.

A source close to the prime minister said that Netanyahu has kept his cards close to his chest as to how he would respond to unilateral action by the PA, but that he has said in the past that Israel has its own unilateral options.

Danon said he hoped the threat of annexation could help Netanyahu to persuade Western leaders to stop the UN from voting on PA statehood at September’s General Assembly gathering in New York.

In addition to his bill for annexation, Danon is also working on legislation to officially repeal the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Since United States President Bill Clinton orchestrated the signing of Oslo between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (Labor) and PA Chairman Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn, Israel has been expected by the international community to cleanse all ethnic Jews from the regions of Judea, Samaria and Gaza in order to cede these territories to the PA.

In 2005, US President George W. Bush succeeded in forcing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (Likud) to implement this agenda in the Gaza region but since the Hamas takeover of that region two years later, Israeli leaders have had trouble convincing the public to willingly comply with Western pressure to further shrink the Jewish state.

According to several politicians and legal experts, the PA attempt to declare unilateral statehood at the UN is a breach of the accords and offers Israel a legitimate way out of what many regard as a policy of national suicide.

Regarding his bill for annexation, Danon expressed confidence that if the legislation would be brought to a vote in the Likud party, it would most likely pass.

Support could also be found from other members of the Likud-led coalition. Lawmakers from the Jewish Home party have indicated that they would support the initiative and a spokesman from the rightist Yisrael Beiteinu faction said that beyond Landau the members are undecided but that it is possible some would back the legislation.

Some legal experts have argued, however, that Danon’s bill is superfluous as there is no reason to officially annex what they say already belongs to Israel.

According to these experts, what is actually necessary is legislation to reverse the 1968 decision of the Shamgar Commission that declared the Judea and Samaria regions to be “disputed territory” rather than part of Israel proper.

Once the Shamgar decision is overturned, the state can institute the 1920 League of Nations resolution from the San Remo Conference recognizing the Jewish people’s right to sovereignty over all territory between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River.

According to the proponents of this plan, reversing Shamgar would annul all agreements concerning Judea and Samaria that conflict with San Remo and would be more effective in securing Jewish rights than Danon’s annexation bill. Following the reversal of Shamgar, international law would unquestionably support the rights of the Jewish people to Israel’s heartland and the only move necessary on Israel’s behalf would be to extend civil law over Area C and to cancel the authority of the “Ciivil Administration.”