Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Sovereignty is not the same
thing as annexation. Prime Minister Netanyahu knows this, which is why he is
always careful to speak of exercising
Israel’s sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and in the Jordan Valley. The
media never seems to see this as a serious distinction, and often cites
Netanyahu as speaking of “annexation,” as in this April 26, 2020 Jerusalem
Post piece, “Netanyahu: I’m confident annexation will happen in a
couple of months.”
In fact, Netanyahu never did
say that, which the body of the same article makes clear. “Three months ago,
the Trump peace plan recognized Israel’s rights in all of Judea and Samaria,” the
article quotes Netanyahu as saying. “President Trump pledged to recognize
Israel’s sovereignty over the Jewish communities there and in the Jordan
Valley. In a couple of months from now, I’m confident that pledge will be
honored, that we will be able to celebrate another historic moment in the
history of Zionism.”
You don’t see the words “annex”
or “annexation” in the above quote. You don’t see them there, because to speak
of annexation would be to suggest that Israel is taking land that belongs to
others and adding it to the State of Israel. Instead, the prime minister says
clear as day, Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley are Israel’s lawful
territories. They already belong to
Israel, are part of Israel. And the U.S., under President Donald J. Trump has
pledged to recognize this fact.
The difference between
sovereignty and annexation is not just a question of semantics,
but of two quite different actions. Writers that insist on using the “a” word strengthen
the trope that Israel is an occupier of someone else’s land, that we acquired
the land through aggression. And that’s
not fair. Or unbiased.
It’s propaganda. It tells the
world that Israel is a thief. Which is not the case.
It is true that Israel, for
instance, kept the official status of Judea and Samaria vague from 1967, hoping
that by leaving something on the table, there would be something left to
negotiate, for peace. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t always see these
territories as belonging to anyone but Israel, ever.
And in fact, the status of Judea
and Samaria and the Jordan Valley as part of Israel isn’t just a matter of how
Israel sees things, but a matter of international law and domestic Israeli law,
too. There’s the December 23, 1920 Boundary Convention, as well as the
subsequent Demarcation Agreement of 1923, (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulet%E2%80%93Newcombe_Agreement) which protects these borders, and
which were enshrined by Article 5 of the Mandate for Palestine which says these
territories may not be ceded. Under Israeli law, there is the 1948
Area of Jurisdiction and Powers Ordinance, which states that any territory
in the Land of Israel that is entered by the IDF, is declared to be under
Israeli control and automatically comes under Israeli rule of law, every bit
the same as for Tel Aviv: "Any law applying to the whole of the State of
Israel shall be deemed to apply to the whole of the area including both the
area of the State of Israel and any part of [Mandate] Palestine which the
Minister of Defence has defined by proclamation as being held by the Defence
Army of Israel."
The only thing missing is for
Israel’s Minister of Defense to now declare these territories under Israeli
control and to apply civilian law. In short, all that is needed is the
declaration—to say: these are our territories—and to exercise the rights that
attend that declaration by ending the state of martial law.
The fact that the United
States, under Donald J. Trump, has agreed that this is so, underscores a
point the media refuses to absorb: Israel has never engaged in an illegal
occupation, and has every right to this territory, and has always had that
right. It is ours and will always be ours. The U.S. declaration is by way of
recognizing Israeli law, something some journalists can’t seem to bring
themselves to do.
As I write this on the eve of
Israeli Independence Day, I can’t help but think how good it would be for
Israeli journalists to finally understand this—yes, even those who write for the
supposedly pro-Israel Jerusalem Post—and
stop spreading propaganda for the other side with misleading headlines. There
really is a difference between exercising sovereignty and annexation, and I say vive la différence.
