Speaking today at a ceremony celebrating the 50-year anniversary of Israel’s military conquest of the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel would always retain full military control over the Jordan Valley irrespective of any future deals with the Palestinians.
Netanyahu insisted that the Palestinians would have both publicly endorse Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people” and to cede to them permanent security control of “all the territory west of the Jordan Valley.”
This has been suggested by Israeli officials in the past, and “west of the Jordan Valley” effectively means that if the Palestinians ever did manage to get independence after generations of Israeli occupation, their external borders would still be occupied in perpetuity.
Netanyahu stayed away from any particular mention of a two-state solution during the speech, beyond declaring what he wanted the Palestinians to give him he made no suggestion that the Palestinians would actually get anything in return.
Israel’s current far-right government has members deeply opposed to Palestinian statehood as a basic concept, and want to simply annex the territory and make the occupation permanent.
Then go ahead and annex Palestine- but you better also be prepared to give Palestinians full Israeli citizenship with all the rights present Israeli citizens enjoy. But wait- you can’t do that because they’ll outnumber you within a few years and boy howdy payback is a b*tch, isn’t it? So what are you gonna do?
That leaves only one solution – The Final Solution.
the point it to control all the area around the Palestinians to keep them from any independent contact with the rest of the world.
According to Netanyahu, Israel must keep control of everything, including the US Congress.
Well, John, Satanyahu may wind up with egg all over his face. Israel cannot control everything .. It certainly cannot control our lives. We’re sovereign, in case he’s forgotten it.
Here’s the deal: there shall be no actual ‘deal’. Terms will be dictated by Israel.
The upshot is this: for the time-being, non-Jews may remain in some Jewish-controlled zones and live as second class citizens. That’s it. Like it or lump it. The occupation shall continue indefinitely.