If Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu is serious about annexing the Jordan Valley, and if he wins
the upcoming election, what will be left to make a Palestinian state out of the
West Bank will be completely surrounded by Israel. [1]
It will be argued that this is necessary for Israel’s security. One wonders if invasion
by Jordan is a serious concern at this point, but that is the only rationale
that can be provided.
Of course, Israelis have
been settling in the West Bank for a while now [2]; and it
seems reasonable to conclude that Mr. Netanyahu has no real intention of
permitting the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank at all. There
certainly has been no progress toward that end under his stewardship, and there
have been settlements. The most reliable gauge for any politician is his
actions rather than his words.
So, let this be the
presumption for the time being, that Benjamin Netanyahu has no intention of
permitting the creation of a Palestinian state. What will be the ramifications
of such a policy?
We shouldn’t expect that
Israeli settlements will come to an end, and so there will be further
encroachments into Palestinian territory. The area remaining for a future
Palestinian state will get increasingly smaller. At the same time, the Israelis
must be cautious about how much of the West Bank it annexes, because it doesn’t
want to create an Israel with an Arab majority. It could simply annex and deny
Palestinians the electoral franchise, but that would make the State of Israel
an international pariah.
Thus, we see the strategy
behind the Israeli settlements on the West Bank. It is to create a Jewish
majority in the area, making it electorally safe for annexation.
The desire for a state
with a Jewish majority has cogency. Rabid anti-Semitism exists in the world.
The Holocaust was not so long ago, and Jews worldwide are rationally concerned
that there are a good number of people who would like to see them exterminated.
The Nazis who continue to exist against all logic and reason must be presumed
to be cognizant of their own ideology. It is easy to see how many Israelis
would look at international objections to their country’s activity in the West
Bank as something to be confronted with a good measure of indifference.
At the same time, it
cannot be denied that what is going on in the occupied territories is an
affront to the republican paradigm. In the United States, at any event, we tend
to have a presumption that the political leadership should be selected by those
to be governed by them, no matter how poorly we effectuate that ideal in
practice. But Palestinians in the occupied territories have no vote.
Politicians don’t worry about those who can’t vote for or against them, and
this reality has been manifested time and again in the occupied territories.
Mr. Netanyahu’s apparent
strategy is going run headlong into demographic realities. If a Palestinian
state is not created, Israel is going to have to allow the voting franchise to
all Palestinians, or it is going to be an apartheid state. But if it allows the
franchise to Palestinians in the occupied territories it risks demolishing the
Zionist vision.
Thus, Israel must permit
the creation of a Palestinian state, with enough land area; and it must do so
before the patience of the international community wears out. The current
situation, where millions are deprived of the electoral franchise, cannot
continue indefinitely.