By David Singer —— Bio and Archives September 17, 2019
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"We will apply sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and the Northern Dead Sea as soon as the next government is established in the next Knesset. Today I have appointed a working team led by the director-general of my ministry, Ronen Peretz, to formulate an outline for applying sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea"Netanyahu has now gone even further reportedly saying that if re-elected, he plans to annex additional "vital" parts of the West Bank in coordination with the United States. Trump's Ambassador in Israel David Friedman has already indicated that Trump's plan will not call for the creation of an additional Arab state between Israel and Jordan based on the 1949 ceasefire lines agreed between those two former enemies. Friedman declared:
"Under certain circumstances, I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank."
"We really don't have a view until we understand how much, on what terms, why does it make sense, why is it good for Israel, why is it good for the region, why does it not create more problems than it solves. These are all things that we'd want to understand, and I don't want to prejudge."Trump seemingly has not yet secured an ironclad guarantee from Jordan or any other Arab interlocutor that they stand ready to negotiate with Israel on Trump's plan. Releasing it without such a guarantee would constitute political suicide for Trump. Netanyahu's pledges provide sufficient justification for Trump to further postpone his deal's release. One can visualise Trump's advisors carefully scrutinising Netanyahu's final map--or any map drawn up by a non-Netanyahu led Government--prior to Trump releasing his deal--to see if common agreement can first be reached on Israel's demands, and then advancing to the next stage to see if agreement between Trump and Netanyahu--or Israel's new Prime Minister--can be reached on what should happen in the remainder of the West Bank. It would then make sense for Trump's plan to be released only after concluding these discussions.
David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International—an organization calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at: jordanispalestine.blogspot.com