One of the comments from my previous post on unilaterally drawing lines a map showing what I described. I managed to produce crude maps of the areas north and south of Route 55 with a rough line showing the division between what I would annex and where I would withdraw. I am not hard set on the exact location of those lines. However, one thing that is clear is that inside of those two perimeters, there are many places with Arabic names, and outside there are just a handful.
One of the justifications for calling for Israel to eventually withdraw from the settlements is that aside from the settlements west of the security barrier, the settlements are surrounded by Arabs. As these maps show, that is true inside the perimeters, but not for the Jordan Valley and not as clear for Route 5 corridor.
This is starting to put me to mind of the Kedar model wherein Israel deals not with some body that claims to speak for all Arabs in the area, but their local community leaders. It seems to me that this would be a natural result of your scenario. Am I wrong?
ReplyDeleteIt could wind up that way, but it is not an essential component. My principle is that the bulk of the Arab population should be contained in a small number of contiguous areas. I also could allow for some parts of Area B to be placed on the annexation side of the line, but would need to know how many people that would entail.
DeleteThe chattering classes push the idea that it has to be one contiguous area. I disagree. However, the current situation where Area A/B is sliced and diced into dozens of pieces creates a legitimate grievance.
There is no logistical solution on a map that can ever work with a group of people who don't want it to work. In the words of Groucho Marx "Whatever it is, I'm against it!"
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure this works, respectfully. We are dealing with a population raised and indoctrinated to virulently hate Jews for three generations, and with a religious justification of that behavior to boot.
ReplyDeleteThat's why all the gestures Israel has made towards the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians - giving them medical care, building their infrastructure, etc. actually giving them land in Area B of Judea and Samaria and residency in Jerusalem have meant nothing.
These people will NEVER be satisfied with less than Israel's eradication. Having 'Palestinian' territory surrounded by Israeli territory merely means a constant poison pill and terrorist irritant.
The best solution is the only one the Arabs ever agreed to, the 1923 San Remo accords. They get 77% of the old Palestine Mandate east of the Jordan River and Israel gets the 23% west of the Jordan.
That original division was also accompanied by a one sided population swap, with the Brits removing every Jew who had settled east of the Jordan, although they did not remove any Arabs from the Jewish side, a sign of Brit policy to come.
The division of Palestine I suggest should likewise be accompanied by a population swap, with compensation for private property. Arabs who live in Judea and Samaria, Arabs are not Israeli citizens but live in Israel, or who identify radically with 'Palestine' should be removed there.
In Israel's case, this would include the fifth columnists who live in Jerusalem as non-citizens with residence permits and a fair amount of the population in Islamist areas in Galilee like Umm Al Fahm. While the majority of Israeli Arabs are happy living there, these two areas are filled with Arabs who are actually disloyal to Israel.
Every agreement of this type that has been successful has involved a certain amount of population swaps as well.
Even an elementary school teacher knows that when two kids are fighting, the first thing you do is separate them.
But what would induce Jordan to take them?
DeleteGood point, Mike, but several things would induce Jordan to go along, IMO.
DeleteFirst, as you probably know, the Midget King is hanging on to his throne by his finger nails. Even some of the Bedouin clans that traditionally support the Hashemite monarchy have turned against him.
He is deeply dependent on that $1 billion in U.S. aid he gets per year. Offering a slight increase would grease the wheels sufficiently. So would getting rid of UNRWA and transferring all or part of its $1.2 billion annual budget to Jordan as economic aid for a set period of time...remember, $948 billion of that sum comes from the U.S. taxpayer.
We did the same thing with Egypt, after all. They made peace with Israel and scored a cool $1.5 billion in aid per year as a sweetener, remember?
Let's not forget that many of the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians actually hold Jordanian citizenship anyway and have since the Jordanian Parliament passed a law in 1954 giving everyone living in Judea and Samaria (remember, all the Jews living there had already been ethnically cleansed)full Jordanian citizenship.
That fun factoid puts a whole new slant of the so called 'refugees' who after 1954 were neither stateless or refugees at all.
Mahmoud Abbas and most of the rest of the Fatah mafia hold Jordanian citizenship as I write this.
Given a choice between finally allowing Jordan to become what it was always supposed to be, the Arab Palestinian state or losing almost $2 billion in U.S. aid (and almost certainly his throne) could prove to be a powerful inducement to Abdullah II do the right thing, don't you think?
And the Arab League would likely go along with this solution, since Iran is a lot more important problem these days than the grievances of the Arabs whom call themselves 'Palestinians.' Aside from the rhetoric that get's issued from time to time just to show willing, they are mostly tired of dealing with the 'Palestinians.'
Nasralluh throws down the gauntlet against the Saudis:
ReplyDelete“We must put pressure on the Arab and Islamic states to repeal peace treaties and other deals with Israel,” Nasrallah said. “I call on Palestinians to kick out any delegation that aims to visit them from countries that have normalized relations with Israel, no matter what the background of those delegations is.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/at-massive-rally-hezbollah-chief-calls-for-intifada-over-jerusalem/