Settlement Council head Danny Dayan came together with several journalists and academics, including Jerusalem Post deputy managing editor Caroline Glick, in Jerusalem recently to call for the extension of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank as an alternative to the two-state paradigm.
Those in attendance, including former Israeli diplomat and Government Press Office director Yoram Ettinger, Begin-Sadat Center researcher Dr. Mordechai Kedar and journalist Yoel Meltzer, arrived to present their visions for the territories captured in the 1967 Six Day War at the conference, entitled “The Preferred Option: Israeli Sovereignty Over Judea & Samaria.â€
The calls for annexation come at a time of high tension over a stalled peace process and are most likely a response to Palestinian President Abbas’ ultimatum that he will ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines unless a breakthrough in made before September.
Israelis have become increasingly frustrated with the Palestinians over this matter and several politicians, including Likud MKs Danny Danon and Tzipi Hotovely, have issued increasingly strident calls for Israel to incorporate the West Bank into Israel as it did previously with East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
Speaking at the gathering, Glick, summing up the sentiments of her fellow speakers, asserted that the “only viable strategic option facing Israel today is Israeli sovereignty over western Israel.â€
“Even if the worst demographic forecasts are correct, instead of lies,†she said, “it is strategically insane to transfer sovereignty over these areas to terrorists.†Doing so, Glick told a packed house at the Orthodox Union’s Israel Center, “wouldn’t reduce the number of Arabs on the west side of the Jordan by one.â€
Outlining the scenario she deemed likely should Israel withdraw from the territories, she postulated that such a course of action would “incite Arabs in the Galilee and the Negev to seek an alliance with a Palestinian terror state in the West Bank or Gaza.â€
Glick warned the audience that the creation of a Palestinian state would lead to successive intifadas within the state of Israel’s borders which would then be indefensible.
The Israeli left, Glick alleged, can “drop an idea in the media and expect it to become policy within a decade.†According to Glick, many Israelis are wary of the establishment of a Palestinian state but the idea of annexation as a viable alternative has not become part of the national discourse. Many people, she claimed, would support this idea if it were better promoted.
Glick, a conservative nationalist, called for a grass-roots campaign of political pressure to bring the idea of annexation into the halls of the Knesset and to give the media little choice but to cover the issue.
Surprisingly, none of the speakers expressed any concern that annexation would lead to a military conflict with Israel’s neighbors. Speaking with the Five Towns Jewish Times, settlement leader Dayan claimed that the two Intifadas were caused by Israel’s “lack of determination†and a show of backbone would deter aggression. “That’s the least of our concerns,†Dayan said.
Dayan told the audience that Israel has the only legitimate claim to the land. However, “even if you are not a Zionist,†he asserted, “you must admit that in the circumstances of the current conflict, the only just solution is that the party which has been the victim of aggression time and again and has accepted compromise†must receive the entirety of the land.
Repeated Arab aggression, Dayan claimed, “completely cancelled the validity of partition as the just solution.â€
“Only we have a valid right,†he announced.
Dayan read from a bill recently passed by the South Carolina legislature calling for “a united Israel,†as proof of grassroots American support for annexation.
The bill, mailed to Dayan by Myrtle Beach Representative Alan Clemmons, stated that “Israel is neither an attacking force nor an occupier of the lands of others, and that peace can be afforded the region only through a united Israel governed under one law for all people.â€
Not all speakers completely agreed with the idea of a one-state solution, however.
Mordechai Kedar, a 25 year veteran of Israeli military intelligence and a popular observer of Arab affairs, put forward what he termed the “Eight State Solution.â€
Rather than creating two states side by side as currently envisioned, Kedar suggested that the major Palestinian population centers of Tulkarem, Jenin, Kalkilya, Nablus, Jericho, Ramallah, and the “Arab part of Hebron,†be turned into independent city states.
The Palestinians “already have a state in Gaza,†Kedar stated, launching into an explanation of the role of tribal loyalty in Palestinian and the wider Arab culture.
Each West Bank city already has a dominant tribe and there is already very little social mixing between Palestinian clans, he claimed. “Tribalism is alive and kicking. Let those tribes have emirates just like in the Gulf.â€
Each city already has its own leadership ready to take over, Kedar said, calling for an end to what he termed the “artificial leadership of the PLO.â€
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