With Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu under increased investigations and the new Trump administration showing flexibility in terms of potential Israeli sovereignty in areas of Judea and Samaria, Naftali Bennett is stepping up his push to end the two state solution as we understand it.
Bennett spoke at the Institute for National Security Studies [INSS] today and forcibly gave across his views of the changing times we live in.
”First point, a Palestine exists [referring to Hamas in Gaza]. Granted, it’s a terror state. It terrorizes its own population and attacks Israeli schools and hospitals using rockets and attack tunnels. This leads to the second point: Apply Israeli law in Area C, the Israeli controlled areas. We will not annex the land, because one can only annex something foreign. This is the Land of Israel, to which Jews have been connected for thousands of years. It is where 450,000 Israelis live.”
After being outflanked on the right by his own party and Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home party and even before his phone call with President Donald Trump, Bibi began to change his tune on the future of Judea and Samaria and building in Jerusalem.
Bibi made it clear that he did indeed back the proposal to annex Maale Adumim, a city of east of Jerusalem made up of 40,000 Israelis.
“The city [of Maale Adumim] will be under Israeli sovereignty,” Netanyahu pledged, “but now is not the right time to take new steps without coordinating with the US government.”
In addition to the statement, Jerusalem approved 671 homes in areas where former President Barack Obama had prevented Israel from building.
Bibi Invited to Washington in February
After their conversation, it was announced that President Trump extended an invitation to PM Netanyahu to visit Washington in February. According to reports, Bibi has asked the government to delay the annexation vote until after he meets Trump.
Channel 2 in Israel is reporting that Trump is set to announce the US will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Monday. Supporting the report’s veracity, the White House confirmed that Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and President Trump discussed the initial stages of the embassy move in their first telephone call at 1:30pm EST.
Menawhile, Palestianian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Jordanian King met in order to coordinate strategy to try thwart the planned move.
YNET is reporting that Dr. Hayel Dawood, Jordan’s Minister of Religious Endowments and Islamic Affairs, gave an interview to Palestinian media after the meeting. He said that Trump’s stated intention to relocate the embassy was “a dangerous development that requires an offensive position against it.” He added that the relocation “constitutes a death blow to Washington’s role as a fair mediator in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and disregard for international resolutions that consider Jerusalem occupied territory.”
Not Clear Who Can Stop Trump
With all of the noise coming out of Rammallah and Amman, they have little power or leverage to stop President Trump from moving the embassy. Both the PA and Jordan are artificially created entities that depend on outside help to keep stable. The other countries in the region either don’t care or have other issues that are for more pressing to deal with.
A few things have come to light in the lead up to President Trump taking the oath of office and today, the second full day of his presidential tenure. Bibi Netanyahu is still afraid to push the button on annexation and Naftali Bennett is willing to call him out on it. For eight years nationalists in Israel gave Bibi Netanyahu a pass due to the immense pressure the Obama administration placed on him over “settlements.” After Trump’s miraculous win, the conventional wisdom was that Israel would just have to wait until January 20th to bury the “two state solution.” After all, he appointed David Friedman as the US Ambassador to Israel and has consecutively confirmed his intention to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.
With this in mind, the odd reports of Bibi Netanyahu pleading with fellow party members and Naftali Bennett to freeze the advancement of a bill to annex Maale Adumim, a city of forty thousand Israelis, seems counter productive. As of the writing of this article, Bennett has acquiesced, but a video interview with the Times of Israel 13 days ago shows Naftali’s Bennett’s thoughts on the unique point in history Israel now finds itself in.
“Donald Trump has shown in his own personal history the ability to take very creative and bold approaches. This [annexing Area C of the West Bank to Israel] is a creative and bold approach. I know it differs from what we’ve been doing for the past two decades. But heck, what we’ve been doing for the past two decades has failed again and again and again,” Bennett states in the interview.
The challenge for Bibi is clear. He must put aside the chess board he is used to playing with and grasp onto the new path being blazed in front of him or younger leaders like Bennett, Glick, and Hotovely will over take him and follow the Trump administration forward.
There is no need for playing games and worry at this point. A unique G-d given opportunity has indeed arisen and as many have pointed out, one that the Israeli leadership should not squander.
