This Week: Indeed, the US-Israel-UAE Statement is Welcome, But Only If ‘Suspend’ Really Means Suspension and Not Cessation
When my time comes, I doubt that I’ll be able to plead as my case “Some of my Best Friends were Journalists,” but some at least I respect, including Stu Bykofsky (stubykofsky.com), formerly of the lamented if not late Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News. Get on his list and you’ll get an email every few days linking to his latest brief incisive insight into some current happening (reminiscent of the remarkable range of the late Herb Denenberg), inviting your comment.
I left Stu a comment this morning. By me, his post this morning, “Why Trump’s Peace Deal is B-I-G,” rightly recognized the US-Israel-UAE joint statement’s immense significance. But Stu then observed: “Israel has long built towns, called settlements, on the land that someday will be in a Palestinian state.” He called this “trouble enough” for Israeli-Palestinian Arab peace, and then added: “Netanyahu then began talking about annexation.” Stu says, “That would mean that what is now called the West Bank (actually Judea and Samaria [that’s in the original]) would be absorbed into Israel,” and that such “annexation” would present Israel “a Hobson’s choice”: deny West Bank Palestinian Arabs the vote and become an “apartheid state,” or give them the vote and let their higher birth rate result in their voting “to abolish the Jewish state.”
Jerry Verlin says:
Alas, a cautionary note. Indeed, the UAE (in its own interests, which do not include Zionism) dealing with Israel is a Big Deal not just between the two but as a potential precedent in Arab states’ normalization with Israel, but, “annexation,” as eg Jonathan Tobin again just pointed out, is an inaccurate anti-Jewish homeland slur.
Annexation is “to take over territory and incorporate it into another political entity, e.g., a country or state” (Encarta Dictionary, included in ‘Word’). Netanyahu isn’t “talking about annexation,” but applying sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, the Hebrew-origin historical names used even by the UN itself (not “West Bank”) in its 1947 Palestine resolution.
Israelis, supported by many grassroots American Jews like me, cannot accept a nine-miles-wide in the lowland middle, historic Jerusalem-less Jewish homeland state, which would be militarily indefensible and Jewishly meaningless. The 1949 ceasefire line (the “green line,” gleefully miscalled “Israel’s 1967 border,” was expressly declared in its very defining document to be a military ceasefire line exclusively, not a political border, was vitiated by renewed 1967 fighting (again started by Jordan – which was 78% of the Palestine Mandate and has a Palestinian Arab majority population) and is not among the Holy Land’s holy places.
The new actual statement just signed by the US, Israel and UAE says “suspend declaring sovereignty,” and both of those terms – “suspend,” not stop,. and “declaring sovereignty,” not “annexation” – matter.
First of all, Netanyahu does not talk “annexation.” See, e.g., Jewish Press.com, 8/13/20, “Netanyahu: Sovereignty Is Delayed, Not Off the Table,” though what is deeply troubling is a quoted President Trump comment:
“Israel agreed not to annex parts of the West Bank. It is more than taking it off the table – they agreed not to do it. This is a very smart concession by Israel. It is off the table now, he said. (Arutz Sheva, 8/14/20, “Trump: Israel Agreed Not To Apply Sovereignty”)
That sounds definitive, but United With Israel (8/14/20, “Friedman Backs Netanyahu: Sovereignty Still on the Table”) not only quoted Friedman, the US Ambassador to Israel:
“The words in the joint statement were carefully chosen. It is no coincidence that the term ‘suspension’ was used. Sovereignty is not off the table, and I am convinced that one day the Israel communities in Judea and Samaria will become part of the State of Israel,”
but quoted President Trump more fully. After quoting the Trump statement above, the United With Israel article continued:
“However, Trump also said that while sovereignty was off the agenda for now, ‘I can’t talk about sometime in the future, that’s a big statement, but right now it’s off the table.’” [emphasis added]
In addition to quoting US Ambassador to Israel Friedman that “sovereignty is suspended, but I do not want to specify a date or say for how long,” the United With Israel article quoted Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon that he welcomed the important agreement but added: “At the same time, this diplomatic achievement must not harm the application of sovereignty – a step that must take place immediately.”
Arlene Kushner, an Israeli commentator I greatly respect, wrote rightly Friday (8/14/20, “From Israel; Have We Sold Out?”, arlenefromisrael.info), that “it’s important to be clear on what UAE officials are saying.” Quite disturbingly, its Minister of State for Foreign Affairs “said the deal dealt a ‘death blow’ [emphasis added] to plans for Israeli sovereignty.” Arlene: “Emratis are speaking of the Arab peace plan, which is based on the ’67 border’ and totally unacceptable to Israel.”
Perhaps, expressly recognized different interpretations on “suspend” (cf re omission of “the” in UNSC 242) can coexist at the upcoming signing, but I think it would be unwise, to say no more, for Israel to go to this signing with the UAE believing, if it does, that Israel accepts the agreement as dealing a “death blow” to Israel applying Judea-Samaria and Jordan Valley sovereignty to areas it has held for 50 years. Israel must stand on, by it, “suspend” meaning suspend.
To those Israelis and American Jews like me who see existential danger to the Jewish state’s security and historically and legally based Jewishness in a new western, along with the existing eastern, Palestine state with a Palestinian Arab majority, sovereignty vs. annexation and suspension vs. cessation are not academic distinctions, any more than Judea-Samaria vs. West Bank, Jewish communities vs. settlements, 1949 ceasefire lines vs. 1967 borders, etc., are such distinctions. Feeling frustrated? Lean on Jewish news sources and commentators who say “annexation … West Bank … 1967 borders,” etc.