Time to Annex Judea and Samaria

January 17, 2013 by Steven Plaut 2 Comments

Steven Plaut is a native Philadelphian who teaches business finance and economics at the University of Haifa in Israel.  He holds a PhD in economics from Princeton.  He is author of the David Horowitz Freedom Centerbooklets about the Hamas  and Jewish Enablers of the War against Israel.

In a few months it will be the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the “Oslo Accord” on the White House lawn.  In that signing, Yassir Arafat, on behalf of the so-called “Palestinian Liberation Organization,” committed himself and his “people” to conduct negotiations with Israel that would lead to a peaceful resolution of the Middle East Arab-Israeli conflict. He forswore unilateral actions and decisions.

Since then, the “Palestinian Authority,” which was set up by the PLO, has violated every single clause in that and the subsequent Oslo Accords.  Twenty years hence, the “Palestinians” as represented by the “Authority” have yet to comply with a single one of their obligations.  Arafat and his gangsters simply used the Accord as a cover to gain control over part of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  They then converted all the territory they controlled into bases for launching terrorist aggression against Israel.  The Palestinian terrorist groups have murdered at least 1700 Israeli civilians since signing that first “peace accord.”  Thousands of Palestinian rockets have been launched into Israel aimed at Israeli civilians, and not just by the Hamas.  “Palestinian leaders” repeat several times each day before breakfast that their aim is the obliteration of Israel altogether and that they will never recognize the legitimacy of Israel within any set of borders.

The media controlled by the “Authority” and the terrorist organizations have been thoroughly nazified; they broadcast anti-Semitic filth that exceeds what the German Nazis broadcast in the 1930s.  The Gaza Strip has been completely nazified. Very little distinguishes the Islamofascism of the Hamas from the Islamofascism of the PLO, and the “president” of the Palestinian Authority is a certified Holocaust Denier.

And now to top it all off, the “Palestinian Authority” has unilaterally declared itself to be a sovereign state and applied for United Nations membership as such.  This is just the latest and not even the worst violation of “Palestinian” obligations under the Oslo Accords.

There is growing debate about how Israel should respond to the behavior of the “Palestinians.”  Indeed, there have already been calls in Israel to implement part of the proposals that follow here.  This unilateral “declaration” of Palestinian statehood and bid for international recognition is not just a wholesale repudiation of the Oslo Accords by the “Palestinians.”  It is also as much a declaration of war as was the secession of South Carolina.  Any similar “secession” would be casus belli in any other country on the planet and would be suppressed with arms.  And any country endorsing or supporting such secession would be treated as an enemy belligerent.

Israel must make it crystal clear: the experimental Israeli willingness to consider acquiescing in the creation of a separate Palestinian state is over.  The “Palestinians” never had a legitimate claim to statehood in the first place, although in exchange for peace Israel was in the past willing to overlook this.  The “Palestinians” forfeited any shaky claim they might have had to statehood because of their behavior during the past two decades, indeed during the past century, their nonstop barbarism and mass atrocities.  This is much like the East Prussians and Sudeten Germans forfeiting all THEIR rights to self-determination and even to autonomy after World War II.

Israel must declare: The game of pretense and fiction is over.  Israel is no longer willing to pretend that there exists some sort of “Palestinian people” entitled to statehood.  The “Palestinians” are Arabs, and Arabs already have 22 states.  They will not get yet another inside Israeli lands.  Any Palestinian wishing to enjoy national sovereignty is free to move to one of those 22 Arab states, but no Arab sovereignty will exist in Israeli territory, meaning the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

The “Palestinian declaration of statehood” must be dealt with by means of a unilateral Israeli settlement imposed on the West Bank and de-nazification of the local population.

The principles upon which such a unilateral Israeli concordance and resolution must be founded are these:

1.  The West Bank belongs to Israel and is Israeli in all ways.  No non-Israeli sovereignty of any form will be permitted in the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.  The West Bank is part of the Jewish national homeland, always was, and always will be.

2.  “Palestinian” Arabs living in the West Bank will not receive Israeli citizenship and will not vote in Israeli national elections.

3.  The land and resources in the West Bank will remain under Israeli supervision, control, and regulation.

4.  “Palestinians” who do not wish to live under Israeli sovereignty will be free to leave.  Israel may consider providing financial support, property compensation, or incentives for those so wishing to leave.

5.  Most “Palestinians” choosing to remain in the West Bank will live in reservations, in some ways resembling Native-American-Indian territories that function inside the United States (possibly even including casinos), although in some ways they will differ.  Reservations will be operated in those parts of the West Bank that have large concentrations of Arab population, meaning Jericho, Nablus, Ramallah, Jenin, Tul Karem, and a few other areas.  Reservations will NOT have territorial contiguity.  In each reservation, the “Palestinians” will be permitted autonomy and limited self-rule to manage their own local affairs as long as violence is completely absent from the reservation.  Where violence is present, they will be denied autonomy.  Reservations from which terrorism arises may be shut down and their populations dispersed.  Arabs engaging in or supporting terrorism in any way will be deported.

6.  “Palestinians” in the West Bank will be considered to be resident aliens within the Jewish state.  Many still have Jordanian passports and citizenship and will be considered resident Jordanians.  “Palestinians” who do not have Jordanian citizenship will be stateless unless they obtain citizenship from some other country.

7.  Jews will have the right to live anywhere they wish in the West Bank outside the reservations assigned to the “Palestinian” Arabs. The territory in the West Bank in which Arabs do not live or live sparsely, and this includes the Jordan Valley and the sparse areas in between the reservations, will be opened to unlimited Jewish settlement.

The villages and towns with the Arab reservations will be assigned to two lists, a white list and a black list.  Those in the white list will manage their own affairs without interference from the Israeli central authorities.  Residents of white-list towns may hold commuter jobs in Israeli cities and industrial parks.  The local authorities in the white areas will manage their schools and other local institutions.  They will collect their own taxes and may benefit from revenue sharing arrangements with the Israeli fiscal authorities, like other Israeli towns.  They might be allowed to operate their own local police forces.  Residents in white-listed areas will be fully and freely mobile, able to move freely within and among all white-list areas. They will be allowed to develop local industry and tourist services.  Their residents will have access to Israel universities, health facilities, and other services.

Those towns and villages in the black list will enjoy none of the above.  Their residents will be denied the opportunity to hold day jobs in Israeli cities and industrial parks.  They will have no access to Israeli services.  They will have control over nothing.  Their residents will be prevented from moving freely outside their reservation, except in cases where they wish to leave the country altogether.  They will receive no shared revenues, no fiscal incentives.

Villages and towns will be assigned to the two lists based entirely on one single factor: violence.  Areas in which violence occurs, and this includes rock throwing, will be assigned to the black list.  Areas in which violence is absent will be assigned to the white list.  Towns and villages will be reassigned to the black list from the white list when terrorism, sniping, mortars, rockets, or other forms of violence occur there.  Towns and villages in the black list will be assigned to the white list only when the local population cooperates fully with Israel in apprehending and arresting the terrorists and those engaged in violence, and takes other effective actions to end the violence.  Otherwise they will remain on the black list indefinitely.  Entry into black list areas will be denied to foreigners, journalists, and especially to the “International Solidarity” anarchists and their ilk. Any such anarchist infiltrating the areas of the black list will be denied permission to leave them and will remain there indefinitely, or else will be imprisoned by Israel.

This of course leaves the dilemma of the Gaza Strip.  As noted, because of the Israeli folly of withdrawing from and abandoning its control over the Gaza Strip, the area is now nothing more than a large rocket-launching terrorist base.  I happen to believe that, in the long run, Israel will have no choice but to re-impose its complete control over the Gaza Strip.

But for the immediate future, an Israeli unilateral set of moves will be necessary here as well.  Basically these must consist of a three-pronged assault against Gaza the very first time that a rocket is launched into Israel from that territory.  In this assault, Israel will seize a strip of land several kilometers wide that will divide the Gaza Strip from Egypt and this will end the massive smuggling of weapons, explosives, drugs and other materials into Gaza.  The other two prongs will split Gaza into three smaller segments.  Israel will control movement of people and materials among these segments.  It will arrest and shoot terrorists on the spot.  And eventually it may impose the system of reservations and the white-black lists upon Gaza as well.

This is how Israel should respond to the declaration of war by the “Palestinians” in their unilateral declaration of statehood.