Translated from my 1.1.2014 article on the Walla site
This week opened with big headlines, informing us that if negotiations
with the Palestinians collapse, the Europeans will lay the blame on the State of
Israel - specifically, on the Netanyahu Government’s insistence upon announcing
spectacular settlement construction
projects. Such assigning of blame by the
EU might have far-reaching consequences to the Israeli economy. The logical
response of a rational Israeli government should have been an intense
diplomatic effort in the capitals of Europe , in order to gain support for the
Israeli point of view.
Conversely, what was the actual reaction of the actual government
which governs Israel nowadays? Adding insult to injury, piling provocation upon
provocation, as if on purpose to conclusively
convince the Europeans that they were right in determining the identity of the
culprit. The immediate response of the Netanyahu Government to the storm clouds
in the European sky was to approve (so far, only in a ministerial
committee) a bill to annex the Jordan Valley .
In the past month, the Jordan Valley became the focus of
negotiations and debate - between Israel and the Palestinians, between Israel
and the United States, as well as among factions of Israelis. This was not by
chance, nor is it the first time. One of the main reasons for the failure of
the Camp David summit in 2000 was the demand of then Prime Minister Ehud Barak
to maintain a long term Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley.
Among the Israel public, the full implications of such as
demand, made in the name of "security", are not always fully
understood. The Jordan Valley constitutes in effect a huge cork, bottling in the
Palestinians and blocking their free access to the outside world. Israeli
control of the Jordan Valley means that it would be Israel which is in control
of the borders of the State of Palestine, determining who will go and out and who will be
banned, which goods may or may not be imported and exported. It would mean that
Palestine will not be a truly independent state, but an enclave under a continued
Israeli rule. It would mean that Israeli occupation of the Palestinians will go
on - and if the occupation goes on, so will the conflict between Israelis and
the Palestinians.
According to various unofficial reports, the security plan
submitted by the Americans to the parties includes a continued Israeli military
presence in the Jordan Valley for quite a few more years - a very bitter pill
for the Palestinians to swallow. They just might agree to sign, reluctantly and
with a gnashing of teeth, an agreement specifying a long transition period before
the termination of occupation in the Jordan Valley – provided that it is a
binding agreement with a clear-cut date by which the last Israeli soldier will
depart from that region. But is there an Israeli partner ready to make such a
commitment? I rather doubt it.
According to the same unofficial leaks, the American proposal
does not include any provision for the continued existence of Israeli
settlements in the Jordan Valley. Nor is there a reason to include such a
clause. The security arguments brought up by Netanyahu and others certainly do
not require the presence of Israeli farmers in the Jordan Valley. Israeli settlements
in the valley do maintain a flourishing agriculture, based on intensive drilling
of water which causes the drying up of the springs which had been used for
generations by the nearby Palestinian villages. A security value to these
settlements cannot be detected even with a magnifying glass. There is one purpose
and one only to these settlements: to make a clearly visible statement that the
Jordan Valley is to remain an Israeli territory for decades and centuries to
come.
That is also the precise message conveyed by the bill which was
authored by Knesset Member Miri Regev and enthusiastically endorsed by Gideon
Saar and senior ministers of the Likud and Jewish Home parties, at the vote in
the Ministerial Committee on
Legislation. The message is loud and clear: Your attention please, Palestinians
and Europeans and Americans! If any of you still entertained any of shadow of a
doubt, please get rid of it: we have no intention whatsoever of reaching an
agreement with the Palestinians.
How would you define a government which behaves like that? The definition
which naturally comes to mind is: a suicidal government .