Tear down that security fence: MK

BENNETT CALLS ON ISRAEL TO ANNEX PARTS OF W. BANK

By Felice Friedson and Linda Gradstein / The Media Line

Tear down that security fence: MK — Chicago Jewish Star, 2 May 2014 — Chicago Jewish Star · Skokie, IL · 2 May 2014

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Transcribed from the clipping

Israeli Economy Minister NAFTALI BENNETT said on April 27 that Israel should annex the 60 percent of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control, and that includes all of the Jewish communities built since acquiring the areas in the 1967 war.

“We should apply Israeli law on the Israeli-controlled parts of Judea and Samaria — the West Bank — and offer full citizenship to those Palestinians who live in these areas,” Bennett told the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem. “The idea is to make the conditions as livable as possible for the foreseeable future.

It’s not as sexy as the perfect, two-state solution, but this is realistic,” he said.

The controversial right-wing minister, who at times appears to be as much at odds with Prime Minister Netanyahu as he is with his left-of-center opponents, said Israel should annex Area C, the 1993 Oslo Accords designation for the portion of the West Bank which is under Israeli administrative and security control.

The 100,000 Palestinians who live there would be given the option to become full Israeli citizens. The rest of the West Bank, where Palestinians exercise full control (Area A), or partial control (Area B), would be given “autonomy on steroids,” according to Bennett.

His proposal to annex the majority of the West Bank is unlikely to be accepted by the Palestinians or most of the international community, which believes there should be an independent Palestinian state within the borders that existed prior to 1967, with some slight modifications.

At the same time, Bennett took what he called an “unpopular” position in Israel and called to gradually dismantle the security fence which Israel has built in and around the West Bank. Many Israelis believe that the construction of the barrier, which Palestinians see as a land grab, has led to a marked increase in their security.

“The reason that cars or suicide bombers are not blowing up in cafes is not the fence but our good intelligence control in Judea and Samaria and our effective ability to thwart attacks before they begin,” Bennett said.

End of Oslo era Bennett, a former head of the Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea and Samaria, spoke as the nine-month period that the parties allotted to U.S.

Secretary of State JOHN KERRY to develop a framework agreement runs out, and three days after the Islamist Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip signed a unity agreement with the rival Fatah movement which is in charge in the West Bank. “The era of Oslo is at its end,” Bennett said, referring to the 1993 agreement that called for an independent Palestinian state.

“We are not going to reach a peace agreement in the foreseeable future. We need to be realistic about what we can achieve and massively invest in infrastructure, in the economy, in the quality of life and in self-governance of the Palestinians.” Israel’s opposition leader, Labor Party Chairman ISAAC HERZOG, told TML that “Bennett’s proposal is not realistic and not reasonable.

“My idea is that Israel introduces a national plan which will get international support and it will demand that the new unity government recognize the principles of the Quartet.”

Obstacles to negotiations Palestinian officials insist that the agreement signed with Hamas for a unity government to pave the way for elections, should not influence the continuation of the U.S.-backed negotiations with Israel. “There is a Catch-22 here,” NABIL SHAATH, a member of the PLO Central Committee and a long-time negotiator told TML.

“In all of our previous negotiations [Netanyahu] used to say, ‘I cannot negotiate with you because you are separated, you don’t control Gaza.’ “And now that we are united, he says the problem is that we are united. You don’t know if the problem is our being separated or being united.”

Shaath also specifically referred to Bennett, saying that if Hamas is an obstacle to peace, so is Naftali Bennett. Netanyahu “talks about Hamas as if they are against this peace process,” Shaath said. “What is he doing with Mr. Bennett in his Cabinet? Mr. Bennett is a man who is against the peace process, who is much farther to the right from him [Netanyahu].

We don’t interfere. He can keep Mr. Bennett. He can keep Mr. [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman. “But he has nothing to do with our partners, nothing to do with our people. This is our job. We decide to unite with whom. Our commitments to international law and to the peace process have not changed.”

How this transcription was made

Date and publication rest on the collector's slide label; no masthead, folio or printed dateline appears on this clipping.

Context added by this archive

The most complete Bennett record in the batch and the only one that argues back. Nouns: 'Jewish communities', 'Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea and Samaria', 'the security fence', 'the barrier, which Palestinians see as a land grab'.

The paper uses Bennett's own 'Judea and Samaria' in its own voice when naming his former job. 'Occupied' does not appear; the 1967 war is 'acquiring the areas'.

Set this beside slide 25: in 2010 Bennett told the LA Times there would be no Palestinian state because 'if they have a state, we'll cease to exist'; in 2014, as a minister, the same position is dressed as pragmatism - 'autonomy on steroids', 'not as sexy as the perfect, two-state solution'. The position did not move; the vocabulary did.

Cite this clipping

"Tear down that security fence: MK," Chicago Jewish Star, 2 May 2014, p. 1 and 4. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2014-051. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2014-051