Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told various officials over the past few days that he is considering a two-stage plan to implement Israel's declaration of sovereignty in the Jordan Valley parts of Judea and Samaria.
According to Netanyahu's plan, the first stage would entail the application of sovereignty to settlements located outside the large blocs in Judea and Samaria, or some 10% of the territory, as opposed to the 30% the Trump plan allows for.
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Once that step is complete, Israel will reach out to the Palestinian Authority and ask it to resume negotiations for a peace agreement. If the Palestinians refuse, Israel will proceed with the second stage and apply sovereignty to the rest of the settlements in Judea and Samaria.
The idea is still in the theoretical stage and nothing has been sketched out on any maps. Netanyahu's bureau has been analyzing the different possibilities, and Israel is keen to hear input from the US.
There were reportedly several considerations that prompted the prime minister to consider a two-stage plan to implement sovereignty. First, he expects that the revised plan will send a signal to the international community and the region that Israel listens to their criticism and acts cautiously. Second, a two-stage implementation is also expected to suit the White House, which sees the Trump plan as a peace plan rather than a plan for annexation. The Trump administration wants the Palestinians to realize that time is not on their side, so calling on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to come to the table between the first and second stages of the plan's implementation serves that purpose.
There are other reasons why Netanyahu wants to begin the application of sovereignty "deep" inside Judea and Samaria: refraining from applying sovereignty to the Jordan Valley in the first stage could blunt Jordan's response, which is a concern. Moreover, a broad agreement that the Jordan Valley will remain in Israel hands under any future peace deal already exists, making the valley less urgent than the Judea and Samaria settlements.
The same reasoning applies to the large settlement blocs in areas such as Ariel, Maaleh Adumim, and Gush Etzion. All previous peace plans have stated that these blocs would remain part of Israel, whereas the application of Israeli sovereignty to the far-flung settlements would be a weighty diplomatic statement and eradicate the possibility of them being uprooted and evacuated in the future.
However, the US administration is demanding that Blue and White agree to the sovereignty bid, and as of now, party leaders Benny Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi are refusing to state their positions, prompting Netanyahu to seek another way to get things moving.
Meanwhile, Israel Hayom has learned that work on the sovereignty bid is being held up because of issues regarding the maps. The first version of the "sovereignty map" was drawn by Col. Danny Tirza, who was responsible for deciding the location of Israel's security barrier. That map, which was later published by the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Yesha), includes contiguous territory for a future Palestinian state, which many right-wing officials opposed.
A different version of the map was then presented to the Americans, one that was more convenient for the settlements but that did not include contiguous Palestinian territory. The mapping committee met several times but failed to reach an agreement. Another reason why Netanyahu is inclined to opt for a two-stage process of implementation is that the first stage would not have to specify what the borders of a future Palestinian state might be.
Although there is little chance of a Palestinian state being established under the Trump plan, the dispute about the borders of a Palestinian state rages on, both in Israel and in the US.
The White House says that there is still no sovereignty map, and the committee's work is ongoing.
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