With all that's going on with the peace plan's rollout, let's pause for a moment and evaluate the legitimacy of what is unfolding in Washington and Jerusalem.
There is the argument that the processes undertaken by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump lack any legitimacy because they are being carried out in the midst of an election campaign and with Netanyahu awaiting his corruption trial.
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This is the claim made by the Netanyahu's chorus of detractors. It is practically the only thing they have left in their arsenal as they try to derail the application of Israeli law in the Jordan Valley under the emerging plan.
But the main problem in their argument is that left-leaning Israeli governments have carried out consequential moves over the past several decades under conspicuously similar circumstances. Where was "Legitimacy Police" back then to cry foul?
When Ehud Olmert was prime minister he held peace talks over a permanent peace deal with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas even after law enforcement began investigating him for corruption and despite announcing that he would step down.
On September 17, 2008, only five days after he submitted his resignation to the president, Olmert met Abbas and agreed to the division of Jerusalem and to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
He also agreed to relinquish Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount, to give up Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley, give the Palestinians land in northern Israel in exchange for settlement blocs. Moreover, as the head of a caretaker government, Olmert led a 22-day military campaign in Gaza in 2008-2009.
When Ehud Barak announced his resignation in 2001, this triggered a snap head-to-head election against the Likud's Ariel Sharon. It also meant that Barak became the head of a caretaker government until a new government could be formed, and hence had limited powers. But that didn't stop him from holding intensive and potentially fateful talks with the Palestinian Authority. Only a handful of people on the Left demurred about his lack of legitimacy.
So long as it was a left-wing prime minister who pulled a fast one, no one really cared about legitimacy. Even when US presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama interfered with Israeli election campaigns in order to hurt Netanyahu, this was welcomed by the Left.
Netanyahu has many strong suits and quite a few faults. But the Left should hold him to the same standards it has used to gauge the legitimacy of prime ministers at other times, including in other cases when the US was a key player in Israeli politics.
If MKs vote according to their conscience rather than according to their hatred of Netanyahu, a huge majority will be found in the Knesset for the annexation of the Jordan Valley, unlike the razor-thin majority used to approve the disastrous Oslo Accords.
The claim that Netanyahu lacks legitimacy doesn't carry water if it is used selectively. Now, this is Netanyahu's decision to make. Let's hope that he doesn't get cold feet, and rather than just annex the area near Jerusalem he also decides to apply Israeli sovereignty on the Jordan Valley and on all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
He has made a pledge and now is the time to deliver on it.
