Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA 22 January, 2020
Minister Bezalel Smutrich has proposed that the government exercise its authority to apply Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and other areas (for the sake of brevity I will call it “annexation”) with that decision conditioned on the Knesset approving the order which implements the decision.
#1. Making the government decision subject to the approval of the recently elected Knesset dramatically weakens the argument that the Supreme Court should void the move since it was made by a transitional government.
#2. The Knesset action is a single vote rather than a legislative process with a myriad of steps – each of which provides an opportunity for perpetually postponing completion of the process. Making the Knesset action approval of an order rather than legislation also avoids the Achilles Heal facing quick legislation: exposure to application of the Supreme Court ruling which voided the “third apartment tax” because the committee which processed the law failed to sufficiently consider the law before sending it to the Knesset for approval.
The Pal-Arab (Abbas, PLO, Hamas) leaders have rejected Trumps plan even though they have not seen it. Israeli leaders should now listen to Trump and his plan.
Without endorsing or rejecting Trumps plan, Israel should just say the Pal-Arabs have again rejected peace negotiations. Given this we are applying Israeli Civil Law to all Jewish Towns, open spaces, nature reserves, roads, and military sites in Judea/Samaria. Israel should reserve the right at a future date to apply its sovereignty to any part of Judea/Samaria.
@ Ted Belman: Does anyone in Israel know what is in the plan except maybe Bibi or his inner circle?
Unless one has been talking to Friedman, Pence, or Trump it is unlikely we know what is in the plan. Every Israeli media outlet has a different version of what they think is in the plan.
Interestingly Pence has said that Bibi got Gantz invited to go to the White House with him. This leads me to speculate that Bibi will try to get Gantz to agree to a Unity Government after the election and have a unified Israeli position on the Trump plan plus work on an agreement on what to annex together and when.
Israel gets almost everything. Ultimately it will get it all.
Trouble is now the Trump peace plan seems to be going to be released very shortly.
Gantz and Bibi are being invited to the White House in regards to the peace plan.
So no way Bibi will proceed to have “annexation” of the Jordan Valley settlements approved by the cabinet on Sunday and then ratified by the full Knesset on Tuesday.
I will not speculate on what is in the plan as much of the media are already doing it.
One thing we do however is that Abbas and all the Pal-Arab leaders have rejected the plan out of hand, sight unseen.
So the Israeli leaders need to leverage whatever is good in the plan and say we have reservations or reject other parts that are dangerous for Israel. Such as if the plan has a Pal-Arab State in it west of the Jordan River or limitations on Israeli security forces west of the Jordan River.
Israel should “annex” any land recognize by Trump as Israeli ASAP.