T. Belman. It is clear that the US won’t create a Palestinian state west of the Jordan R. Bibi’s plan to extend Israel law to all settlements and the enlarged Jordan Valley is totally in line with the Deal of the Century.Trump from the getgo took away the PA veto. Instead he wants to propose a deal that is good for Jews and Palestinians alike. But he has never indicated how he intends to get the Palestinians’ approval, if at all.
I think that a unity government will also do what Bibi has announced, so that is not a problem. Trump said he will table the plan or most of it after the elections. So the Plan will be on the table for acquiescence by the Unity Government. Once the government is formed, sovereighnty will be applied. This is tantamount to annexation.
Sources in Washington acknowledged that there is no contradiction between Netanyahu’s plan to annex the Jordan Valley and Trump’s peace plan. It is impossible to overstate the significance of these statements.
By Caroline B. Glick, ISRAEL HAYOM
Hamas, which seeks to annihilate Israel, certainly was none too pleased with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement Tuesday evening that if re-elected, he would apply Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea in coordination with the United States.
Hamas has good reason not to like what Netanyahu said. It even made sense that Gaza’s terror regime tried to harm Netanyahu politically by launching a volley of missiles at Ashdod while Netanyahu was giving a speech in the city. (Netanyahu’s political rivals on the Left and Right were quick to take Hamas’ bait and use Hamas’ aggression as a means to score political points against Netanyahu.)
Hamas was right to hate what Netanyahu said because Netanyahu’s statement Tuesday evening was a strategic blow to the hundred-year-old Palestinian war against the Jewish state.
What did Netanyahu do in that statement? Most media commentary claimed his statement wasn’t substantive. It was just another political promise from a desperate politician who is looking with increasing panic at unflattering polls.
But that assessment obscures more than it reveals. Netanyahu may be concerned about his polling numbers. But his statement Tuesday was not a display of political desperation but of diplomatic triumph. Netanyahu’s statement made clear that he enjoys a cooperative relationship with US President Donald Trump that has no parallel in the history of Israel-US relations.
Netanyahu said Trump will present his peace plan mere days after the election. Immediately after Trump presents his plan, Netanyahu announced that he will work to advance an Israeli initiative that will lead to the application of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria “on the [Israeli] communities and other areas with maximum coordination with the United States.”
Netanyahu continued that he has already received the administration’s acceptance of his plan “to apply, with the establishment of the next government, Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea.”
Sources in Washington acknowledged that there is no contradiction between Netanyahu’s plan and Trump’s peace plan.
It is impossible to overstate the significance of these statements.
For the past 52 years, every Israeli prime minister has tried to convince the US to agree to give some sort of recognition to Israeli rights to Judea and Samaria. All of them failed.
During his premiership, Ariel Sharon presented then-president George W. Bush’s letter to him from April 2004 as a major, earth-shattering diplomatic achievement. The letter was Bush’s response to Sharon’s plan to unilaterally withdraw all Israeli civilians and military personnel and installations from the Gaza Strip.
In his letter, Bush wrote: “As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders.”
Bush added, “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.”
Sharon’s claim that the Bush letter represented a major achievement and a shift in US policy regarding Judea and Samaria was political, not substantive. He wished to convince the public that Israel would gain something from throwing ten thousand law-abiding Israeli citizens out of their homes and destroying their communities and handing over Gaza, as well as four communities in Samaria, lock, stock, and barrel to the PLO and Hamas.
In reality, as then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was quick to note, the Bush letter did not represent a change in US policy regarding Judea and Samaria. There, as in every other US statement on the areas before and since, the US gave the Palestinians a veto over all Israeli claims to national rights in Judea and Samaria.
Tuesday, Netanyahu announced that he has convinced Trump to take away the Palestinian veto. This is an unprecedented shift in US policy in Israel’s favor.
Moreover, Netanyahu did make a political promise. He said that this shift isn’t mere verbiage. It is the basis of a policy that he promised to implement “immediately” after he forms the next government if the public re-elects him next Tuesday.
Netanyahu concluded his remarks by noting, “We haven’t had an opportunity like this since the Six-Day War and it is doubtful that we will have such an opportunity in the next 50 years.
Netanyahu is right. And Hamas knows he’s right.
It is important that the Israeli public also understand that he is right.
@ Roberto Edery:I am also a fan of Yamina. Yes, I am well aware who Rivlin can pick the candidate he thinks has the best chance of becoming PM. If no candidate gets 61 recommendations or there are too many blocking recommendations against a particular candidate, Rivlin will most likely pick the candidate with the most seats to try and form a coalition.
I hope you are right that their will be a right wing coalition. My guesstimate is the same but this is FAR from a sure outcome.
The Israeli voters WILL NOT WANT A Third ELECTION in ONE YEAR. So before that were to happen unity coalitions would be explored no matter how distasteful they may be.
@ Bear Klein:
Even if Blue and White would win, it doesn’t mean that Rivlin will task them with forming a coalition, I think the President ask all elected parties to submit to him who will they endorse for PM, and that will give Netanyahu the clear victory.
Unity Government with Lapid? I don’t think Bibi will consider THAT possibility ever again. Once was more than enough. Besides, if Yamina gets a good result, is better to make the Right-Wing coalition of sixty-something, and they can make the annexation without a problem, and the best of it, leaving Lieberman out.
That’s why I consider the best option to vote for Yamina, since they will back Netanyahu, but the stronger they are, they wil be able to keep Bibi on track about his promises, so many times unfullfilled, about Judea and Samaria.
Another poll on Jewish press perhaps the last poll that will be published per law. Shows a clear but squeaky path for Bibi to squeak to coalition of 61 right wing/religious + Orly Levy maybe.
I have tried to copy and paste three times but it does not work. Seems Jewish Press is preventing copying.
jewishpress.com/news/israel/religious-secular-in-israel-israel/friday-the-thirteenth-final-pole-shows-bibi-has-path-to-victory/2019/09/13/
Gantz and Lapid will have a strong chance to form a government if they can persuade all of the leftist Jewish parties, Leiberman and at least some of the parties on the Arab “United List” to support them in a vote of confidence. I realize that some of us think that is impossible. I think that it is possible. Another possible scenario is that even if the “Right” bloc falls short of 61 seats by only a few seats, Bibi may be willing to “lure” or ‘bribe” a few MKs in the blue-and-White coalition, especially Ya’alon, Ashkenazi and their followers, if is appears that the alternative is a leftist government relying on Arab support to stay in office. Ya’alon and Ashkenazi dislike Bibi, but they are not leftists.
The latest poll indicates that Likud voters want Bibi, and not any other Likud member, to be the Prime Minister and party leader. The overwhelming majority say that they would not support another Likudnik as Prime Minister or Gantz or Lapid as Prime Minister. This also makes a unity government unlikely. But public pressure will force either one or the other bloc to put together a majority coalition.There will be a race between Bibi and Gantz-Lapid to see who can put together a majority coalition first. So there will be a new government, either a Left-leaning one or a Right-leaning one. But not a unity government.government.
Again, that’s just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
Ted, I think there is very little prospect that a unity government. The policy differences between the Left-of- Center bloc and the Right of-Center bloc are just too great to make that possible. The Right is committed to allowing all Jewish “settlers” in Judea-Samaria to keep their homes and to allow these communities to continue to exist, and even grow. The Left-of-Center bloc has made it clear (in the Blue-White campaign platform and in interviews with Benny Gantz) that it is willing to sacrifice the settlements outside Jerusalem, the major settlement blocs, and the Jordan Valley in return for a peace deal with the PLO. Pinchas Lapid says he is open to including some of the anti-Zionist Arab parties in a future coalition government. The so-called Democratic Union (Meretz) endorses their inclusion. The Right is absolutely opposed to the inclusion of these parties in the government. The Left bloc is committed to the two-state solution. Most of the Right candidates have serious reservations about this proposal. The gap between the two political blocs is in my opinion too great to be bridged. Either one bloc or the other will form the next government, depending on how Israel votes.
That’s just my opinion.
@ Yoel Ben-Avraham:
You have a statement to make?
@ Bear Klein:
Yes, but did N@ Bear Klein:
Yes but did Netanyahu promise to keep his promise?
@ Wooly Mammoth:
Bear explained the odds in his comment to you. .Your question should have asked me why I think the Unity Government would approve the Trump deal. My answer is that they would be crazy not to.
@ Wooly Mammoth:
No one knows what the vote will be and then were coalition negotiations will precede to land.
What seems most likely is the following:
Center & Left will not be able to form a coalition without a right wing party. Blue/White will be the largest Center or Left party by far.
The Likud will be either the largest or second largest party. The Likud has a chance to form a right wing & religious party coalition (it is possible they get 61 or more seats). If the Likud can not lead a purely right wing religious coalition then there will likely be a unity government as the Israeli voters will NOT stomach a third election within one year.
If the Likud/Religious Coalition has 61 seats or very close, they may try and form a unity government first with Labor/Gesher to bring them over the top.
If the Blue/White has more seats and President Rivlin asks them to form a coalition they will ask Yisrael Betenyu and Likud to form a coalition excluding Yamina and the UTJ/Shas.
There are other possibilities as the Likud bringing in the Blue/White, Yamina and the UTJ/Shas in a very broad coalition.
I am NOT taking bets on anything except that the Arab Joint List will not be part of a coalition.
Ted, just curious…what makes you believe Israel will get a Unity Government.
The only way in which a person could conclude this, is if it is known that Netanyahu, himself, would opt for a unity government.
Ted, you must have an extremely reliable source into Netanyahu’s thinking, it seems to me. Please correct me if I am wrong.
@ Bear Klein:
Glick is right! The right moment is NOW! The right man to do is only BIBI!
@ Bear Klein:
You may be right but I don’t want to say what influenced me to suggest as I did.
Ted, I believe you are flat wrong that a unity government would also apply Israeli sovereignty to Judea/Samaria. Lapid has said he dead set against this. Gantz is holding out for a future peace deal and is willing to let some of the settlements die.
This is an excellent article:
Seems some of voters agree with Glick that what Bibi is promising on Judea/Samaria Sovereignty.
See TOI article