Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and alternate-PM Benny Gantz on Wednesday held another in-depth discussion on the matter of applying Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley. Also in attendance were Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi (Blue and White) and Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin (Likud).
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who attended previous meetings with senior Israeli officials, did not attend Wednesday's meeting. The current US approach is that Israeli leaders need to agree among themselves and once they do the US will support their decision.
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In the meantime, both the right and left criticized the prime minister's "sovereignty in stages" plan, first reported on Wednesday by Israel Hayom. The Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) called on Netanyahu not to "surrender to pressure from the left and the Arabs, but to take the historic step of implementing sovereignty in all of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley as you promised to Israeli citizens in the election, without a [construction] freeze and stages and without a Palestinian state that will compromise the integrity of our country and jeopardize the future of the settlement enterprise and security of Israeli citizens."
Former Meretz Chairwoman Zahava Galon, meanwhile, said of the prime minister's proposal: "It's called apartheid via salami tactics."
MK Bezalel Smotrich (Tkuma) said, "It's a type of trial balloon Netanyahu is releasing. We started in January with applying sovereignty and ended with a package deal that will lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. There's a con-job taking place here on the Israeli public."
Among the reasons Netanyahu formulated the phased sovereignty plan is to temper the Jordanian response, and within the framework of the plan, the Jordan Valley will only be part of the second stage. Indeed, Jordanian officials on Wednesday took pains to lower their profile amid inter-Israeli divisions over the sovereignty initiative.
A senior official in Amman told Israel Hayom: "The wars among the Jews are not our business, even if it pertains to the annexation plan and the manner of its implementation. The Palestinian interest is obviously important to us, but what's more acute from our perspective is Jordan's national and security interest. The ideological link between the West Bank and Jordan is inseparable, but any framework that will keep the Palestinians in the West Bank and not create a geographical connection between the independent Palestinian state and the Hashemite Kingdom – is acceptable to us."
According to the Jordanian official, the option of the Israel sovereignty plan being implemented in several phases, while delaying the application of sovereignty in the Jordan Valley until later stages, could be acceptable to the Jordanians because such a move would reduce the pressure inside Jordan that King Abdullah II is facing.
"Our position on the matter of the Jordan Valley is known: We believe it is supposed to be part of the future Palestinian state. With that, we won't accept the presence of an international military force on Jordan's western border and certainly won't accept the presence of a Palestinian military force responsible for safeguarding the kingdom's western border. This is also the reason for our objection in the past to the diplomatic initiative spearheaded by [former US] secretary of state John Kerry during the Obama administration, who wanted to transfer most of the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians, and proposed various and odd technological tools to preserve Jordan and Israel's security interests," the official said.
"Israel also adamantly objected to this initiative. From the perspective of the Jordanian security interest, we prefer an IDF presence west of the kingdom in the Jordan Valley over any other alternative. Contrary to the poor diplomatic relations with Israel – the security relationship is excellent. We have no interest or intention of damaging our security relations with Israel on behalf of the Palestinians," he said.
The official also said that Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah are disappointed over the unofficial positions of Arab countries on the matter of Israeli sovereignty.
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"No one is asking why the Arab League isn't convening, despite the Palestinians' lamentations over Israel's intention to implement the annexation plan," he said.
"The Palestinians also know that Arab countries have their own internal problems. Each country has its own internal issues; I don't see that any Arab leader is ruining relations with the Trump administration for the Palestinians. The traditional Arab position on the Palestinian issue is clear and known – but alongside this position, which envisions a two-state solution, each Arab country has a host of diplomatic, national and security interests of their own."
