Sovereignty, or the application of civil law to Judea and
Samaria, has been hereby suspended,
in favor of a peace accord with the UAE. How long that suspension will last is
anyone’s guess. Some think it’s a done deal—that the subject of sovereignty is
permanently off the table—while others think Bibi will make good his electoral promise
of sovereignty, doing the right thing at the right time, in good time. But was
sovereignty ever really on the table in the first place?
“Peace for peace,”
said Netanyahu in his remarks
to the nation about the accord, emphasizing that this would not be a cold
peace, but a peace in which Israel and the UAE would be equals and friends. But
the prime minister’s words also suggested that Israel traded not sovereignty for peace, but peace for peace: that Israel got something so huge in the exchange that it was worth it—worth giving up Israel’s sovereignty. But are sovereignty
and peace commodities that might be traded, one for the other, even
Steven? Is peace somehow bigger and more important than sovereignty? More worthwhile?
A reasonable person might ask: is "peace for peace" only more Netanyahu oratorical sleight of hand? For how is peace made, if not by sovereign entities as equals? And if Israel is robbed of the right to self-determination in parts of its lawful, indigenous territory, one might argue that it has no power to make an accord. That the right to make accords belongs solely to sovereign countries.
Giving up sovereignty is unfortunate in many ways, not least for creating a gap between the UAE and Israel, removing any semblance of parity between the two. Suspending sovereignty at the behest of the U.S. turns Israel
into a vassal state, tied to Uncle Sam’s apron strings. It means that America
decides the fate of the Jews and the land God gave them. Or rather, in agreeing to suspend sovereignty, Israel has ceded its rights, making America sovereign over the Holy Land.
This is what Netanyahu did in agreeing to suspend
sovereignty. But who knows, perhaps sovereignty was never really on the table at all. Perhaps the suggested parameters of sovereignty were only meant to suggest the borders of a “Palestinian” state.
I put the question to Nadia Matar, co-chairman of Women in Green with Yehudit Katsover. The
two have lately gone on to create the Sovereignty Movement (Ribonut), which serves as a forum and a
campaign for the application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. Matar’s
response to my question regarding partial sovereignty was succinct: “Bibi is on his
way to create a PA state. He has to go.”
Inbar sees Bibi and Israel as the
big winners here. A different picture emerges, however, in a recent interview of
Finance Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) on Kan Bet, where Katz said that sovereignty had been frozen before
the agreement with the United Arab Emirates. The MK was frank in stating that
there actually is no connection
between the peace accord with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the decision
to suspend sovereignty. That it was simply “more convenient” for the Arab
nations to present the accords as if they had brought about the suspension of sovereignty.
In this light, freezing sovereignty is akin to Israel freezing construction in Judea and Samaria, or what hostile elements call “settlement expansion.” It was canny of
the UAE to squeeze this concession from the Jews. In theory, if not in application, the suspension of sovereignty makes the UAE a hero to
the Arab people for staying Israel's hands in applying its land rights in the Holy Land, land that is coveted by the Arab people.
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| President Trump announces the agreement on August 13, 2020 |
Jared Kushner, however, asserts that the entire question of sovereignty is moot, “That land is land that right now Israel quite frankly controls. Israelis that live there aren’t going anywhere. There shouldn’t be any urgency to applying Israeli law. We believe they will respect their agreement.”
With this statement, Kushner betrays his lack of
understanding of a very basic issue: that the territories have been under martial
law since 1967, and living under martial law, is no way to live.
Sovereignty means bringing civility to Judea and Samaria. For the wild, wild “West
Bank” is a lawless place, where anything might happen when
tensions flare, and the only thing to stop it is soldiers.
This is not a proper or humane state of affairs for Jews or Arabs. Asked if the application of
civil law to the territories stood to benefit the Palestinians, Khaled Abu Toameh,
an Israeli Arab journalist and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, responded, “I
believe they would prefer any law to the existing set of laws, which includes
Israeli military law, Jordanian law and Palestinian law. These laws have
complicated the lives of Palestinians and created much confusion for many.”
The Point of the Deal: A Palestinian State
The Trump peace plan doesn’t factor in that confusion. It’s not
the point or the focus of the deal. The purpose of the Deal of the Century, is to create a Palestinian
state on 70 percent of Judea and Samaria through the application of Israeli
sovereignty to just 30 percent of that land, effectively giving up another huge chunk
of Jewish land to the Arabs for good, land that now legally belongs to Israel
under international law. The normalization agreement with the UAE, however, puts a stopper into that idea, stipulating that Israel suspend its plan to extend Israeli law to these areas.
Kushner was frank about all this in his public remarks on the accord,
in which he stated that Prime Minister Netanyahu had agreed to a map
dividing Judea and Samaria into a Palestinian state with a part that would
belong to Israel, calling it “the first map ever agreed publicly to by one of
the parties.”
This, it appears, was the intent of partial sovereignty from the beginning. In giving up
sovereignty over most of Judea and Samaria, Israel gives up more land to the Arabs for a state. Hence Trump’s peace plan
turns the application of civilian law into another Israeli land giveaway, yet more
land for peace. The plan actually turns sovereignty into something that is
anathema to the world: annexation, by making Israel the thief in asserting its rights to a mere 30
percent of Jewish land, when in fact it is Israel, giving away yet more of its God-given land,
more lifeblood, to the Arabs.
The Deal of the Century gives the Arabs license to encroach on yet more Jewish land, in the very same sort of creeping annexation of which Israel stands accused. Make no mistake: this is an Arab land grab going all the way back to the British Mandate for Palestine, when responding to Arab entreaties, Britain
reneged on its promise to the Jews, and created Transjordan on 78 percent of
the Mandate. It is the same creeping Arab annexation of Jewish land that was Oslo, the same creeping Arab annexation of Jewish land that resulted from the expulsion
of the Jews from Gaza. And yet it is Israel that is the enabler of this state
of affairs, in which the Arabs get more Jewish land over time, as the Jews are squeezed into borders that shrink over time, inching ever closer to the sea.