Twenty-five Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are not included in the area that Israel is expected to annex (or apply Israeli law to, depending on your linguistic preference) according to President Donald Trump’s peace plan, Reshet Bet radio reported Monday morning. The Trump map shows these 25 Jewish clusters as standing in the middle of a future Palestinian State-owned territories, surrounded by Arab communities – without connecting routes to Israel which do not run through hostile environments.
To be exact, these territories do not appear on the American map as enclaves of Israeli sovereignty in the middle of an envisioned Palestine, as in other cases – they are completely absent from the map.
These are communities such as Gilead Farm in Samaria and Asael in southern Mount Hebron, and neighborhoods on the hills adjacent to Yitzhar and Itamar. About 500 families live in the outposts which have been erased from the Trump peace map, and they have been demanding clarification from the Netanyahu-Gantz government: will they be included in Israel’s sovereignty map, or not? And if they are off the Israeli map, does this mean a future repeat of the 2005 Gush Katif forced evacuation?
President Trump originally stated that no Israelis or Palestinians would be evicted from their homes, but what is one to do when his home was erased from the map?
Representatives of the communities of Asael, Pnei Kedem, Givat Assaf and the Gilad Farm wrote the Prime Minister: “We are now watching the sword that is hoisted over our very existence. We seek a clarification of what should be taken for granted: that no settlement will be uprooted and no family will be evicted from their home.”
The Prime Minister met on Sunday with 11 heads of municipalities in Judea and Samaria and told them that all that’s being required of Israel is to give its consent in principle to negotiations of a future Palestinian state with the PA, not actually establishing such a state. In other words, let our grandchildren deal with it (when they aren’t busy paying up the billions in debt incurred by the Netanyahu-Gantz government during the coronavirus crisis, when no one was working but everyone still had to eat.
Netanyahu also told the settler leaders that what the Americans call a Palestinian state – we don’t call it that, Kan 11 News reported.
There was another zinger: Netanyahu told the settler leaders that the Americans have not yet given the green light to apply Israeli law to parts of Judea and Samaria, and it may well be that by the end of the process, Israeli law would be applied in more humble figures.
So, to summarize: 25 Jewish settlements will disappear, Israel will agree in principle to a future Palestinian state, and the promised sovereignty will be a lot more limited than we imagine.
It isn’t clear, by the way, whether Blue&White Chairman, Defense Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz supports the annexation/sovereignty, although he won’t be able to block it in an open Knesset vote – Netanyahu would be supported by Israel Beiteinu and Yamina, no matter how questionable the actual sovereignty would end up being. It’s now—as is often the case—up to Netanyahu.