Lieberman Wants Jordan Back in Judea and Samaria?

Peloni

Avigdor Lieberman. By Itzhak Harari / Knesset Archives, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

The proposal is striking not merely because of who made it, but because of what it would require Israel to surrender – its sovereignty to a hostile nation.

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Lieberman has made the seemingly untethered proposal of having Jordan return to Judea and Samaria so as to assume security and administrative responsibility for the lands described as Areas A and B under the Oslo process.  He argues that Israel should not be managing the daily lives of Palestinians in the territory while also preventing a security vacuum that could be exploited by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other armed groups.

Lieberman made the proposal during a recording of the B’Sheva podcast. He initiallly indicated that Areas B and C should be controlled by Jordan, arguing that Israel should reach an understanding with Jordan under which Jordan would “manage the West Bank” and take security and administrative responsibility.  He subsequently clarified that he had misspoken and stated that he meant to indicate Areas A and B rather than Areas B and C.

It is useful to recall that under the Oslo arrangements, Area A is under Palestinian Authority civil and security control, but PA security forces coordinate with Israel. In Area B, the PA has civil responsibility while Israel maintains security responsibility. Area C, constitutes roughly 60 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is to remain under full Israeli security and administrative control.

Hence, Lieberman’s correction in describing his proposal would leave Area C under complete Israeli control while transferring responsibility for Areas A and B to Jordan, but it would have Israel relinquish control over Area B which it currently controls.

Lieberman argues that the purpose of his proposal is intended to prevent a vacuum in the PA population centers. He argued that Israeli control over Area C should be maintained, but calls for an alternative to using the Palestinian Authority to administer Areas A and B.

“You have to reach an understanding here with the Jordanians, that they will manage the West Bank,” Lieberman said. “Let them take security and administrative responsibility. You cannot have a vacuum.”

When he was asked whether he trusted Jordan to assume such responsibility, Lieberman simply responded by stating that Jordan “has no choice.” He explained that he did not know whether Jordan would send its army into the PA territories in Judea and Samaria or whether it would establish battalions in those areals and place them under Jordanian command.

Lieberman specifically addressed the concern for Israel being responsible for managing the lives of Arabs living in cities such as Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm in the PA territories. He argued that Jordan could assume that responsibility while preventing Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups from filling the resulting vacuum.

Describing his plan as an “Israeli-Jordanian confederation” Lieberman noted that the Palestinian Authority is “a terrorist organization,” which can not be relied upon as it engages in “diplomatic terrorism.”

The proposal immediately drew criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu accused Lieberman of moving politically to the left and specifically objected to the prospect of Jordanian forces assuming any control over Judea and Samaria, stating “I never believed you would propose today that the Jordanian army control parts of the Land of Israel. Take it back immediately.”

The dispute between the two political rivals quickly morphed into a contest of depicting the questionable aspects of eachother’s respective records on territorial and security matters

Specifically relating to Lieberman’s current proposal, Netanyahu sharply rebuked that this proposal represents an unprecedented concession which would return Eretz Israel to be controlled by Jordanian forces.  He sharply rebuked Lieberman for having suggest this and demanded that he withdraw the proposal at once.  Foreign Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli added their voices to that of Netanyahu in condemning the madness of having Jordanian forces controlling Israeli lands. 

What goes unspoken here is the need for a solution to the security situation in the hotbed population centers in the PA territories where the population have been weaponized and indoctrinated to the purpose of murdering Jews regardless of the cost.  Importantly, so long as Jews are accessible to these victims of their own society and the weaponized attitudes of the the international community,  it will remain impossible for Israel to permanently deflect the slaughter of Jews by these savage automatons of death.

Ironically,Lieberman has cultivated a reputation as a security hawk, who would supposedly be unwilling to indulge illusions about Israel’s enemies.  This image has stood the test of time despite the fact that Lieberman was a vital element in forming the Bennett govt which not only sat in a govt with the Muslim Brotherhood Ra’am party, but also agreed to forego any further response at the end of the May 2021 war with Hamas which saw Israeli Arabs rising in support of the Hamas attack on Israel, and instead supported the offering of massive public funds to the Israeli Arab sector under the control of Ra’am’s political leader, Mansour Abas.

This latest proposal demonstrates require Israel to place a significant part of its security environment in Judea and Samaria in the hands of a foreign government and as demonstrated in the United Nations yesterday, Jordan is not even trying to mask its hostility for Israel, never mind the effort that the Jordanian govt has taken to try to maintain the Muslim Brotherhood in power while pretending to ban it.

Lieberman’s proposal rests on the remarkable assumption that Israel can solve the security and political problems created by Palestinian Authority’s duplicity by transferring responsibility to Jordan when Jordanian interests, internal politics and long-term stability are simply not aligned with that of Israel.  Of course, Lieberman is correct in suggesting that a solution for  this problem might be found in Jordan, but it would have to be a Jordan which looked very different from that which exists today on the far side of the Jordan River where the limit of its authority must remain.

Indeed, recalling that Jordan was actually the Muslim Palestinian state created on a whim at the Cairo Conference a century ago, the option which  still remains a viable potential today is to have the American ban on the Muslim Brotherhood fully enacted against all iterations of the Brotherhood and its Islamist affiliates in Jordan and then to make the Jordan Option operational.  Returning Jordanian citizenship to those Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, along with an open door to Jordan where investments would attract those citizens under the rule of a man whose instincts, sympathies and interests truly align with that of Israel.  That man of course is not the corrupt King Abdullah, but rather it is Mudar Zahran.  Jordan is Palestine, so why not pretend that we are not all as ignorant of this fact as is commonly attempted to pacify the Islamist radicals in the region.

Under such a plan as this, Lieberman would be correct to conclude that Israel’s solution lies in Jordan, but until such a plan is enacted, the attempt to look to Jordan to solve Israel’s problems would simply be one of the worst applications of logic and critical reasoning that anyone might ever contrive.

The solution to lawlessness in Judea and Samaria is not to once again forego Israeli sovereignty, but to exercise that sovereignty and let the dissident Arabs seek shelter elsewhere, and yes, Jordan does make the most sense.  But first we have to create the environment for such a plan to succeed.  Til then, the rights of Israelis to live should supersede the rights of Jordan’s disowned Arabs to revolt, and enforcing this task must be carried out by the IDF, not some foreign force which could hardly be trusted to secure Israeli lands for Israel, with one of the worst ideas being to hand it to Jordan with its record of duplicity and mischief which has cost so many lives over the past century that it would be difficult to calculate.

Sources

Lieberman proposes Jordanian control in Judea and Samaria

Liberman proposes ‘Israeli-Jordanian confederation’ for parts of West Bank