IN THE JORDAN VALLEY, FACTS ON THE GROUND ARE WHAT WE NEED, NOT ANNEXATION

By Pinhas Avivi

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The Jordan Valley must be Israel's eastern border; yet the question remains how best to achieve that outcome.

Momentum is growing for an Israeli annexation of the Jordan Valley and areas of Judea and Samaria. However, the fact that the Netanyahu government has, for more than ten years, refrained from taking that step at the practical level suggests that the potential consequences of annexation are significant.

Most Israelis, from Left to Right, believe that there are some places in the territories that must remain under Israeli control. But many are opposed to the idea of Israel becoming a binational Jewish–Palestinian state. The majority of Israelis, whether on the Right, Left, or Center, do not wish to see all of the residents of the West Bank become Israeli citizens, therefore. 

This consensus attitude views ongoing Israeli control of the Jordan Valley as critical. The dramatic changes that have swept the Middle East; including the revolutions in Arab states, the rise of radical Islam, and the danger posed by Iran's regional conduct, have forged the consensus that the Jordan Valley must be Israel's eastern border. 

But that is where the agreement ends. The manner in which Israel should secure the Jordan Valley is in dispute within Israel, as is the fate of other areas of the West Bank. 

Case studies around the world, as well as Israel's own experience, show that in order to control territory, a state must firstly have a firm civilian presence embedded therein. 

In the previous century, Chile conquered a northern area previously controlled by Peru and Bolivia. To this day, Chilean control of the area remains disputed. Yet Chile created facts on the ground within that territory, and today, no one expects it to relinquish control.  

Closer to home, no one, on the Right or Left of the political spectrum, thinks the major settlement blocs can be transferred over to a future Palestinian state for the same reason – facts on the ground preclude that from happening; specifically, communities of significant size. Whether Israel annexes these blocs or not, it exercises control over them in a de facto manner.

Israel has not created the same type of de facto reality in the Jordan Valley, despite the existence of opportunities to do so. Developments could include a new, central, north-south highway that runs parallel to Route 6, and which would connect Jerusalem to the Golan Heights. That highway would promote industry in the Jordan Valley, potentially in cooperation with Jordan. A far broader Israeli agricultural presence is also badly needed in the Jordan Valley and should be developed. 

Those are the efforts that should be undertaken and they are of significantly greater importance than the pursuit of de jure annexation measures. 

In addition, negative ramifications resulting from annexation cannot be ignored. Jordan relinquished its designs for the West Bank in favor of establishing a Palestinian state there, because it has a core, existential interest in preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state in its own territory, which would endanger its very existence. As a result, any de jure annexation steps would alarm the Hashemite Kingdom. Israel's has thus far avoided annexation, in part because it understands that problem. 

Meanwhile, Israel has made major progress developing strategic ties with regional states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. These Arab states develop such ties, not only because it helps them form a defensive wall against Iranian aggression, but also because the Palestinian issue is not a live discussion at this time. Annexation would change all of that, and place the Palestinian issue firmly back in the spotlight. Returning it to prominence is not an Israeli interest. 

As soon as de jure annexation is initiated, sleeping bears will stir. It would practically force the Gulf states to take up a position that will not be a sympathetic to Israel. 

As a result, Israeli interests would be served far more effectively by de facto development of the Jordan Valley, through the growth of communities, infrastructure, industry, and agriculture, rather than Knesset decisions on annexation. 

In the meantime, signs are growing that the Trump Administration is changing its tune regarding the prospect of a broad annexation. The voices coming out of Washington on the matter are divergent from those originally heard. 

Israelis who insist upon seizing this historic moment for annexation point out that Iran is of greater concern to Arab states than the Palestinian issue. They argue that the world is preoccupied with dealing with the Coronavirus crisis. Both points are valid points – but annexation remains likely to renew opposition to Israel, both in the region and beyond. 

None of this is to say that Israel should be passive in shaping its borders. The option of de facto steps on the ground is available, essential - and preferable. 

Even on the Israeli Right, most prefer to avoid a situation that would drag Israel into a binational reality. Annexation opens the door to that. Caution is vital. The Palestinian Authority may not survive a large-scale annexation, and that would leave Israel in charge of directly running the affairs of 2.5 million West Bank Palestinians, creating a de facto binational reality. Israel needs to avoid that path. 

The dormant status of the Palestinian issue is to Israel’s benefit - a situation that should be preserved. De jure Annexation could spark a new intifada, or foment a situation where Turkey is able to challenge and decry the improving state of Arab links with the state of Israel.  

To promote Israel's long-term interests, the facts on the ground are what matter. De jure annexation now could undercut the progress made by such facts - needlessly so. 

Ambassador Pinhas Avivi is a former Senior Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Israel, where he was responsible for global, strategic and multilateral affairs. Read full bio here.

Is love for the people of Israel sufficient to overcome hatred of the state of Israel?

By Grant Newman

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All of Christendom fasted this year on Good Friday for relief from the Coronavirus, and Providence responded with an Israeli research institute based in Galilee that is working on a vaccine for the virus and with the release of the third season of “Fauda” on Netflix.  And Christians once again found salvation in Israel.

The Recent Increase in Anti-Semitism.

Alas, not all communities are similarly philo-Semitic.  Indeed, the past six months have seen a spike in anti-Semitism in the New York Metro Area.  In early December 2019, two members of the Black Hebrew Israelites murdered a police officer before entering a kosher delicatessen in Jersey City and killing five patrons.  There is reason to believe that their initial target was actually the Yeshiva next door.  In late December 2019, a man entered a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New Jersey, and began stabbing people gathered for Hanukkah celebrations.  These two events took place amidst a broader uptick in anti-Semitic attacks in Brooklyn.  Most notably was an incident where a woman assaulted three Jewish women while spewing anti-Semitic slurs.  Because of recent reforms to the criminal justice system in New York, the woman was released from police custody without bail, whereupon she immediately proceeded to assault another woman.

A chilling aspect of these attacks is the response of neighboring communities.  Rather than condemn the attackers, local residents instead cited reasons why an individual might be understandably angered unto violence against the local Jewish community and expressed sentiments that have been common whenever anti-Semitism has been en vogue throughout history.

New York City’s municipal government has been anything but philo-Semitic.  In late April 2020, after learning that Orthodox Jews had gathered in Brooklyn at a rabbi’s funeral, Mayor Bill De Blasio publicly threatened the Jewish community with arrests for violating social distancing guidelines.  During New York’s darkest hour, De Blasio identified a scapegoat and characterized the entire Jewish community as lawbreakers who are unconcerned with public health, as though the Jewish community alone — and not De Blasio’s own failed leadership — should be blamed for New York’s prolonged Coronavirus pandemic.  As Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, noted, “Every time a leader like [De Blasio] stereotypes the ‘Jewish community,’ he feeds into the dangerous agenda of white supremacists and anti-Semites around the world.”

The Need for Philo-Semitism.

It is on this background that Robert Nicholson and Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik introduced the need for philo-Semitism.  According to Nicholson, anti-Semitism grows from a resentment of “chosennes” — resentment that G-d chose the nation of Israel to play a special role in history.  Anti-Semitism “turns Jewish chosenness on its head and assigns to the people of Israel responsibility for all the world’s ills.”  Nicholson suggests that calling out anti-Semitism is not enough and posits that the best response to anti-Semitism isn’t anti-anti-Semitism, but rather philo-Semitism — or love of the Jewish people.  Rabbi Soloveichick cites the welcoming of public displays of the menorah and other public celebrations of Jewish chosenness as examples of philo-Semitism among gentiles in America.  Surely philo-Semitism, including acknowledgement of the contribution that the Jewish community and its members make to society, can do much to change the hearts and minds of local residents who might otherwise harbor anti-Semitic animosity.

The Limits of Philo-Semitism.

However, regardless of its capacity to do good at a local level, it is unlikely that philo-Semitism is sufficient to reverse institutionalized anti-Semitism at a global level.  Commenting on the difficulty of changing a global institution with anti-Semitic tendencies, John Podhoretz recently said of the United Nations, “I am skeptical that you can fix what’s broken in an endemically anti-Semitic institution simply by dint of the fact that it is endemically anti-Semitic and therefore in its DNA has a conspiratorial and conspiracist worldview that will distort every decision that the institution makes.”

Examples of institutionalized hatred towards Israel abound.  For instance, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which is a founding legal instrument of the African Union, includes as an organizing principle the elimination of “colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, [and] zionism.”  That a founding document of a political union encompassing 1.2 billion people includes zionism as an existential threat against which the union and its subjects must organize their resources suggests the extent to which hatred of Israel has become normalized in global institutions.  Anti-Semitism has become yet another piece of furniture in the moral universe of international governing bodies.

Furthermore, just as a general must tailor an army’s attack to match the enemy’s defense, so too the methods used to eradicate anti-Semitism must be tailored so as to effectively combat anti-Semitism in the places where anti-Semitism lives.  The case of the African Charter indicates that anti-Semitism lives not just in the hearts and minds of anti-Semites, but also in the founding documents of global organizations.  Thus, displaying a menorah in an American neighborhood and otherwise promoting philo-Semitism, while undoubtedly having a positive impact in that neighborhood, will probably do little to remove hatred of Israel from the founding documents of global institutions.  As such, purging anti-Semitism from these institutions will require instruments that have a legal effect that is at least as legally binding as the instruments used to institutionalize anti-Semitism in the first place.

Still another example of institutionalized hatred can be seen in the response of the BDS movement to news that Israel is developing a vaccine for the Coronavirus.  According to Omar Barghouti, cooperating with Israel to fight Coronavirus does not constitute a normalization of Israeli evil and therefore one may take advantage of a future Israeli vaccine without violating tenets of the BDS movement.  But at no point does Barghouti express gratitude towards Israel for working to develop a vaccine.  In other words, the development of a vaccine is neither a normalization event nor a reason to shed even the smallest amount of anti-Semitism.  Creating a vaccine to save the world from the worst health pandemic since the bubonic plague is perhaps the most tangible and irrefutable philo-Semitic argument one could ever hope to make, and yet even the production of this life-saving nectar is not enough to cure certain institutions of their institutionalized anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism must be attacked at both the local and international levels, and philo-Semitism should play an important role in a broader strategy to do so.  However, if implemented on its own, it is unlikely that philo-Semitism will be enough to effectively fight anti-Semitism at international levels, especially where such anti-Semitism is legally institutionalized.

Grant Newman graduated from Harvard Law School where he was an executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. Grant was the recipient of the Federalist Society’s James Madison Award in 2019, and was active in the Alliance for Israel. Prior to law school, Grant graduated from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, with a degree in Business Strategy. He worked for several years at a major university in Moscow, Russia, and spent two years in Siberia dedicated to church service.