Netanyahu has worked for decades to achieve the current status quo whereby the Palestinian issue has all but disappeared from the global agenda. Why jeopardize that by pursuing actual annexation?
By Anshel Pfeffer, HAARETZ
After 16 months of incessant election campaigns and fruitless coalition horse-trading, Benjamin Netanyahu is finally about to swear in his fifth government.
At the same time, Israel seems to have gotten past the first major wave of coronavirus infections and sickness, and is now emerging from the shutdown of nearly two months. So now that politics and public health are no longer top of the agenda, we can finally get back to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Not that anything new has been happening in the conflict for a while now. No new diplomacy, no major violence; just the ongoing stagnation of military occupation, which in a month will be marking its 53rd anniversary. But there may be an exciting new development in store.
The coalition agreement signed between Netanyahu and Benny Gantz allows the prime minister to bring “the agreement which will be achieved with the United States on the imposition of sovereignty” for approval to the cabinet and Knesset from the beginning of July. In the pro-Netanyahu, free newspaper Israel Hayom, U.S. Ambassador David Friedman is quoted as saying that the Trump administration is prepared to recognize Israel’s sovereignty “within weeks.”
So it’s finally happening. Israel is going to annex major parts of the West Bank. European foreign ministers and the Arab League have already issued the standard denunciations, and foreign policy think tanks are publishing reports on the devastating implications.
Only it’s not going to happen. And not because of them. It’s not going to happen because Netanyahu doesn’t really want annexation. At least not now.
Netanyahu has now served as prime minister for a combined total of 14 years, and has done nothing on the ground to prepare the way for annexation. While most of his time in office has come during the terms of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who were hardly friendly towards him, he has also had the entire term of Donald Trump at his disposal.
“Bibi could have pushed for annexation from the moment Trump was inaugurated,” says one of his ministers. “He didn’t because he doesn’t really want to. He remembered annexation only when the elections came.”
The settlers’ lobby has been demanding annexation literally from the morning of November 9, 2016, when it transpired that Trump had won the U.S. election. They even sent representatives to Trump Tower, but “Netanyahu got there before us,” said one of them. “He made sure that the administration put out a statement not to go ahead with major settlement building or annexation.”
Annexation was put on hold for over two years, until it suddenly made an appearance in an interview in April 2019, days before the first of three elections in the space of a year. It was no coincidence. Netanyahu had focused on the promise of annexation as a lever to bring out the right-wing base to the ballot box. And he ramped up the promises in each election: From a few settlements in the April election, to the entire Jordan Valley on the eve of the September election, and then the Jordan Valley and all the settlements in the Trump plan, just four weeks before the third election.
But Netanyahu doesn’t need it to win an election anymore. He has a deal with Benny Gantz that ensures he remains in power for at least three more years. There’s no need to rally the base now. Neither will annexation help Netanyahu fulfill his second goal, after reelection – preventing the anti-corruption case against him going ahead. Annexation is a complex operation and Netanyahu simply won’t have the time to focus on it in the coming months, as he prepares to face the judges in Jerusalem District Court.
The settlers and the ideological hard-core on the right still hope Netanyahu seeks a career-defining “legacy” in the form of annexation. But they don’t realize that Netanyahu doesn’t believe his career is anywhere near over. So what’s the rush? They hope Netanyahu won’t allow the “historic opportunity” of the Trump presidency to pass without annexation, but Netanyahu’s perspective is a long-term one.
He has already realized that the prospect of Trump being reelected is vanishingly small and that he will soon have to deal with President Joe Biden. Netanyahu and Biden had a relatively decent relationship during the Obama administration, and Biden has already made it clear he will strenuously oppose annexation. But on the other hand, he won’t reverse Trump’s decision and move the U.S. Embassy back from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. So Netanyahu will still have a legacy from the Trump era.
Netanyahu has probably got all he could have hoped for from Trump – the embassy in Jerusalem; U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal; recognizition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The annexation contained in Trump’s “deal of the century” won’t be realized. The last months of Trump’s presidency will consumed by the pandemic and a flailing reelection campaign.
Netanyahu understands this. As it is, he never expected to reach the state where the world acquiesced to Israel’s annexing of the West Bank in his lifetime. Netanyahu has worked for decades to achieve the current status quo whereby the Palestinian issue has all but disappeared from the global agenda; it serves him well. Why jeopardize it? The last thing Netanyahu wants is to make the Palestinians relevant and newsworthy again by rushing to annex.
Annexing the Jordan Valley and the settlements will fulfill the ideological right’s dearest dream, but it will also mean that Netanyahu has ended his historic role as far as they’re concerned. They won’t agree to the second stage of the Trump deal – founding a Palestinian state on the remaining two-thirds of the West Bank. Netanyahu knows it makes much more political sense for him to keep the annexation as an unfulfilled promise for his base and blame “the left” for “wasting the historic opportunity,” which will be Gantz’s role in the new government: to take the blame.
There will be a lot of talk about annexation over the next few months, once the new government is sworn in – but talk is all there will be.
@ Reader:
Either you can see into the future-or are speculating, and casting a very wide net-
But-if you are NOT always trying to have the last word, (which I’ve seen in your exchanges with others also- but always in good taste, I admit) you give a very good impression of it, In a way, I admire how you compress every last little drop of argument out of the topic -and especially the responses, (That’s not to say, if the reports are correct, that he has not been dealing in a very dirty way with Yamina)-
However, I believe you, so let’s finish here-
Agree ???
I am NOT trying to have the last word, and I don’t know neither do I care how or what a statesman thinks.
I only care about how what he DOES affect his COUNTRY.
The rest IS irrelevant.
@ Reader:
You know nothing whatever about how a statesman thinks, nor his reasons for acting in certain ways-except what some self-interested pseudo-journalist writes, or you produce in what you call your intellect.
I myself have complaints against Netanyahu, especially about the way he treated Yamina, in particular Bennett and Shaked, who both, in the opinions of many pundits and experts, had been, and were the very Best Defence and Justice Ministers in Israeli history- and including the others too, like -Smotrich- in the damage, and trying, like a sneak, to wiggle Peretz away from them- -But I don’t endlessly grab onto someone’s comment to scrabble away at it until I get agreement-
So you have NO point, and please, there’s NO point in discussing further-so stop badgering about it You know you don’t ALWAYS have to have the last word !!
@ Edgar G.:
You seem to think that Netanyahu may be excused and understood when he makes decisions which are bad for the state because he is under a lot of pressure and he has some unknown reasons for doing what he is doing.
In my opinion, a statesman is not entitled to these kinds of excuses.
If he can’t work for the good of his country because he cannot take the pressure, he has to quit.
Why does his electorate have to feel sorry for him because “unbearable pressure” or “unknown reasons” make him hurt his country’s interests?
I don’t know why you think this argument is irrelevant.
@ Reader:
You”re telling ME???? Why do you make such irrelevant answers which have no real reasoning behind them ???
@ Edgar G.:
Being a Prime Minister is not a game or a hobby – he is responsible for the whole country which is continually under attack and whose borders are in question.
If he cannot stand the pressure, what has he been doing there for so long?
His job is to defend his country’s interests.
If he can’t handle the responsibility, then he should retire and let someone who can take the pressure handle it.
@ Reader:
We have no concept of the enormous pressures he has always been under- so NO, I don’t need to check his track record -I don’t know his reasons nor do you; nor Yamit-
@ Edgar G.:
Then just check Netanyahu’s track record.
He made the current situation much worse by freezing settlement construction, at least, and this is not something that can be fixed.
If not for him, we could be talking about at least 50% and not 30%. Also, if there were more than a million Jews in Judea and Samaria, any question of withdrawal a la Gaza or population exchanges would be moot.
@ Reader:
I’ve learnt to take Yamit”s comments about Netanyahu with a large spoon of salt- He is a notorious and relentless hater of the family-don*t know the history but they collided somewhere- otherwise I admire and respect him and his great knowledge-
BTW, what if Biden’s “threats” to reverse Trump’s policy are designed to provoke Israel into the annexation to be followed by the creation of the P. state?
Everyone’s goal is to create that fake state by hook or by crook.
@ Edgar G.:
See Yamit82’s comment about BB or check BB’s long track record.
@ yamit82:
I hate to say this but I’ve been making the same argument here for weeks (that the annexation is a trap for Israel which will end up with P. state on the 70% of Judea and Samaria).
@ greenrobot:
“According to a Reuters Poll, Joe Biden’s edge over President Trump is “eroding”.
Reuters:
Joe Biden’s advantage over President Donald Trump in popular support has eroded in recent weeks as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee struggles for visibility with voters during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday.
The opinion poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday found that 43% of registered voters said they would support Biden in the Nov. 3 presidential election, while 41% said they would back Trump. That makes the contest essentially a toss-up, as the results are within the poll’s credibility interval.
Biden led by 6 percentage points in a similar poll last week and by 8 points in a poll that ran April 15 to 21.
This comes amid the sexual assault allegations that Joe Biden is facing.
This is great news for President Trump. President Trump is a polarizing figure and may never be up big in these polls. However, if the polls show it close there is no question he will win.
Biden is in trouble!” https://thepalmierireport.com/reuters-bidens-edge-over-trump-eroding/?fbclid=IwAR3Qgen4W-uey34jyrGCJB00h9BZMRw7g4-_4JAfECGonOgMW7Y94hfAWCs
@ Reader:
There is NEVER time when “no one is looking”,,,He and his whole family have been under an electron microscope ever since he came into politics-even before. You are wrong here
Pfeifer (Yiddish for whistler-in the dark) Stop twisting the truth more than usual-which is a lot- Netanyahu does NOT have to “found” a “Palestinian” State-Is he now an omnipotent being?? It is THEY who have to comply with certain rules to be allowed to declare a state-
@ greenrobot:
Depends on whose poll you read and let’s not forget that the polls were wrong in 2016, as they were wrong in 2000 and 1948. “Trump Approval Rating Hits All-Time High in New Gallup Poll”
By ZACHARY EVANS
May 1, 2020 10:32 AM
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-approval-rating-hits-all-time-high-in-new-gallup-poll/
West Bank settlers: Trump plan calls for Palestinian statehood
Claiming U.S. aims to allow the establishment of a Palestinian state on 70% of area captured by Israel in 1967, Yesha Council warns decision to extend sovereignty over settlements and Jordan Valley is in hands of government
BB is opposed to Jewish sovereignty in Y&S.
BB is on record in supporting a Palestinian State.
BB has halted construction in Jerusalem and Y&S several times under various American administrations.
BB remembers his ideological bona fides then discarded after victory during election campaigns.
BB after 1999 remembers it was the ideological right that threw in out of office when he had a solid right-wing government. Since that experience, he has avoided like the plague a solid right of center coalition preferring to rule with the left.
BB is a vile corrupt POS and his mentally ill wife who controls him is even worse.
He personifies the Talmudic Parable of “THE STINKING FISH”
And so the fool ate the fish, got whipped for the fish and, in the end, had to pay for it, anyhow. Those in Israel and without, who refuse to understand that play the same fool.
If Bibi wants a true legacy as a great leader of Israel who helped sginificantly in the Zionist dream he certainly will annex by the end of July all the Jewish Towns in Judea/Samaria plus the Jordan Valley and North Dead Sea Area.
This will solidify him as much if not more than five terms as Prime Minister as one of the most important leaders Israel has ever had.
I do not believe anything is stopping him that I can foresee at the moment.
There are always reasons not to do something but solidifying the future of the 500,000 Jews who live in Judea/Samaria plus the Jordan Valley is very important for the future of Israel.
The conflict will not be over with the Pal-Arabs as they are still in the land. It is however, an important step in strongly showing the Pal-Arabs that they CAN NOT WIN!
Israel will be free to build in these areas just as in anywhere else Israel. Still bureaucratic but no one will need to involve the Ministry of Defense in the process. So building should be faster.
Netanyahu will never annex anything for the same reason he froze the settlements – because he is who he is – he talks a good game and then quietly does the opposite when no one’s looking.
He has already realized that the prospect of Trump being reelected is vanishingly small and that he will soon have to deal with President Joe Biden. According to ?