Israel's annexation plans are headache for Arab states
Tom Allinson | Lewis Sanders IV
June 29, 2020
From Riyadh to Amman, economic links and geopolitical interests have brought Arab states closer to normalizing relations with Israel. But plans to annex parts of the West Bank could scupper that prospect.
On July 1, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to take a significant step toward annexing up to 30% of the occupied Palestinian West Bank, covering Israeli settlements and the strategic area of the fertile Jordan Valley.
The move, spurred by US President Donald Trump's peace plan, has been condemned across the globe, including by the Palestinians' Arab allies. The Arab League last week warned it could trigger a "religious war in and beyond our region."
In May, Jordan's King Abdullah II told German news magazine Der Spiegel that an Israeli annexation would lead to "massive conflict" with his country and the suspension of their peace treaty was among "all options" being considered.
An unprecedented op-ed from the United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba, in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth earlier this month warned that annexation would "upend" Gulf states' growing normalization with Israel. Last week's announcement of UAE cooperation with Israel in combating the coronavirus was seemingly dangled as an example of what may be at risk.
Limiting annexation
Such interventions have had an impact largely because Israel values those relationships more than many of their others, said Jake Walles, a former US consul general in Jerusalem.
"The current reporting out of Israel is ... to go for a more limited annexation rather than a full annexation of 30%," Walles said. "I think the Arab reaction has played a role in moving this to a more limited step than what was originally intended."
Israel's plans to annex up to 30% of the Jordan Valley have put Arab states in a predicamentImage: DW/T. Krämer
If Israel steps back from annexing the Jordan Valley but moves ahead with taking settlements closer to the so-called 1967 border [the internationally recognized border between the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel — the ed.], Jordan could respond by freezing security and diplomatic contacts or even suspending a gas deal between the two countries, Walles said.
But previous condemnations of such US and Israeli moves have resulted in little concrete action from the Palestinians' traditional Arab allies as a result of growing economic links with Israel and shared geopolitical interests.
Shifting priorities
One sign of these shifting priorities is Saudi Arabia and the UAE's continued air, sea and land blockade of Qatar, which they accused of supporting terrorism through links to Iran, long considered Israel's preeminent rival in the region. Saudi Arabia began allowing limited Israel-bound flights over its territory in 2018.
Trade between Israel and the Gulf states is now estimated at $1 billion (€890 million) a year, US analyst Aaron David Miller outlined recently in a piece for US news outlet Politico. "Much more on the intelligence and security side is reportedly happening below the waterline," Miller wrote.
Indeed, the UAE's al-Otaiba joined ambassadors from Oman and Bahrain in giving their countries' implicit imprimatur to Trump's plan when they attended its unveiling in January. But he and other Emirati and Gulf officials have apparently balked at the speed of Israel's unilateral push without further negotiations.
'Reaping what they have sown'
For some experts, the Gulf states' creeping normalization with Israel may have emboldened those pushing for annexation at the Palestinians' expense.
A decade of growing ties has boosted the Israeli right-wing domestically by proving that it doesn't have to make concessions to the Palestinians to gain recognition and acceptance from its neighbors, according to Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the Israeli-Palestinian Forum for Regional Thinking.
"Arab Gulf regimes are now reaping what they have sown," Tsurkov wrote last month for the Middle East Institute. "Their protestation against the annexation plan rings hollow after they spent years normalizing relations with the Israeli government while it entrenched its abusive military rule over the Palestinians."
A history of the Middle East peace process
For over half a century, disputes between Israelis and Palestinians over land, refugees and holy sites remain unresolved. DW gives you a short history of when the conflict flared and when attempts were made to end it.
UN Security Council Resolution 242, 1967
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, passed on November 22, 1967, called for the exchange of land for peace. Since then, many of the attempts to establish peace in the region have referred to 242. The resolution was written in accordance with Chapter VI of the UN Charter, under which resolutions are recommendations, not orders.
Image: Getty Images/Keystone
Camp David Accords, 1978
A coalition of Arab states, led by Egypt and Syria, fought Israel in the Yom Kippur or October War in October 1973. The conflict eventually led to the secret peace talks that yielded two agreements after 12 days. This picture from March 26, 1979, shows Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, his US counterpart Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin after signing the accords in Washington.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/B. Daugherty
The Madrid Conference, 1991
The US and the former Soviet Union came together to organize a conference in the Spanish capital. The discussions involved Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinians — not from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) — who met with Israeli negotiators for the first time. While the conference achieved little, it did create the framework for later, more productive talks.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Hollander
Oslo I Accord, 1993
The negotiations in Norway between Israel and the PLO, the first direct meeting between the two parties, resulted in the Oslo I Accord. The agreement was signed in the US in September 1993. It demanded that Israeli troops withdraw from West Bank and Gaza Strip and a self-governing, interim Palestinian authority be set up for a five-year transitional period. A second accord was signed in 1995.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Sachs
Camp David Summit Meeting, 2000
US President Bill Clinton invited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to the retreat in July 2000 to discuss borders, security, settlements, refugees and Jerusalem. Despite the negotiations being more detailed than ever before, no agreement was concluded. The failure to reach a consensus at Camp David was followed by renewed Palestinian uprising, the Second Intifada.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/R. Edmonds
The Arab Peace Initiative, 2002
The Camp David negotiations were followed first by meetings in Washington and then in Cairo and Taba, Egypt — all without results. Later the Arab League proposed the Arab Peace Initiative in Beirut in March 2002. The plan called on Israel to withdraw to pre-1967 borders so that a Palestinian state could be set up in the West Bank and Gaza. In return, Arab countries would agree to recognize Israel.
Image: Getty Images/C. Kealy
The Roadmap, 2003
The US, EU, Russia and the UN worked together as the Middle East Quartet to develop a road map to peace. While Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas accepted the text, his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon had more reservations with the wording. The timetable called for a final agreement on a two-state solution to be reached in 2005. Unfortunately, it was never implemented.
Image: Getty Iamges/AFP/J. Aruri
Annapolis, 2007
In 2007, US President George W. Bush hosted a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, to relaunch the peace process. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas took part in talks with officials from the Quartet and over a dozen Arab states. It was agreed that further negotiations would be held with the goal of reaching a peace deal by the end of 2008.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Thew
Washington, 2010
In 2010, US Middle East Envoy George Mitchell convinced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to and implement a 10-month moratorium on settlements in disputed territories. Later, Netanyahu and Abbas agreed to relaunch direct negotiations to resolve all issues. Negotiations began in Washington in September 2010, but within weeks there was a deadlock.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Milner
Cycle of escalation and ceasefire continues
A new round of violence broke out in and around Gaza in late 2012. A ceasefire was reached between Israel and those in power in the Gaza Strip, which held until June 2014. The kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in June 2014 resulted in renewed violence and eventually led to the Israeli military operation Protective Edge. It ended with a ceasefire on August 26, 2014.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Paris summit, 2017
Envoys from over 70 countries gathered in Paris, France, to discuss the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Netanyahu slammed the discussions as "rigged" against his country. Neither Israeli nor Palestinian representatives attended the summit. "A two-state solution is the only possible one," French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said at the opening of the event.
Image: Reuters/T. Samson
Deteriorating relations in 2017
Despite the year's optimistic opening, 2017 brought further stagnation in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. A deadly summer attack on Israeli police at the Temple Mount, a site holy to both Jews and Muslims, sparked deadly clashes. Then US President Donald Trump's plan to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem prompted Palestinian leader Abbas to say "the measures ... undermine all peace efforts."
Image: Reuters/A. Awad
Trump's peace plan backfires, 2020
US President Donald Trump presented a peace plan that freezes Israeli settlement construction but retains Israeli control over most of the illegal settlements it has already built. The plan would double Palestinian-controlled territory but asks Palestinians to cross a red line and accept the previously constructed West Bank settlements as Israeli territory. Palestinians reject the plan.
Image: Reuters/M. Salem
Conflict reignites in 2021
Plans to evict four families and give their homes in East Jerusalem to Jewish settlers led to escalating violence in May 2021. Hamas fired over 2,000 rockets at Israel, and Israeli military airstrikes razed buildings in the Gaza Strip. The international community, including Germany's Foreign Ministry, called for an end to the violence and both sides to return to the negotiating table.
Image: Mahmud Hams/AFP
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Bleak prospects
How countries like Jordan and the Gulf States may yet act if even a limited annexation goes ahead will nonetheless have an impact.
Their reactions could pressure the Palestinian Authority to fully suspend security cooperation with Israel and disband, or encourage Hamas in the Gaza Strip to go on the offensive — moves that could force Israel's hand in eventually re-occupying Gaza or moving toward full control of the West Bank.
If that happens, "no other diplomatic effort is likely to resurrect prospects for a two-state deal anytime soon," three retired Israeli military chiefs, Ami Ayalon, Tamir Pardo and Gadi Shamni, warned in a piece published by the US news magazine Foreign Policy.
"Rescuing Israel from the impossible dilemma of giving up its Jewish identity by granting annexed Palestinians equal rights or forfeiting its democracy by depriving them of those rights may turn out to be a mission impossible," they wrote.
Such moves could also spill over onto Jordanian King Abdullah's doorstep, with possibly even more Palestinian refugees crossing the border, compounding tough choices domestically.
"He's going to face a lot of pressure from his population to do something and be as tough as possible," Walles said. "On the other side he's got a relationship with Washington that he's got to worry about. Jordan receives a lot of assistance from the US, both economic and military."
"This could be the most consequential decision [King Abdullah] is going to make."
Jericho's Palestinians in limbo
11:58
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