Weekly Commentary: Follow up on the annexation solution
Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 17 March 2011

The 10 March 2011 commentary on the annexation option generated considerable
feedback.

Numerous alternatives were raised. Among them:

1. “Creeping annexation” according to which annexation take place over
several decades: This approach ignores that the whole reason that there is
a need to come up with an Israeli “solution” is that there is a very
tangible danger that a sovereign Palestinian state that constitutes an
existential danger to Israel will be foisted on us this fall. A twenty or
thirty year program is simply irrelevant.

2. Residency in the West Bank with voting in Jordan: The program relies
on Jordan’s cooperation and if implemented could contribute to destabilizing
our neighbor.

3. West Bank in confederation with Jordan: Out of the frying pan and into
the fire. No one can be sure who will be ruling Jordan in the future. lf a
sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank would be an existential danger
to Israel then why would a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and
Jordan – a definite possible outcome of such a program - be any less an
existential danger?

4. Encouraging Palestinian emigration: Even if such a project could be
implemented it would not meet the relevant time frame of months.

Annexation certainly carries with it risks.

But the risks associated with a sovereign Palestinian state are so great and
the threat that such a state will come into existence in a few months so
real that the “calculated risk” of annexation is dwarfed by the sovereign
Palestinian state alternative.

Again. Autonomy would be better. But if the real options on the menu are a
sovereign Palestinian state or annexing and giving the Palestinians in the
West Bank the right to be Israeli citizens then the clear choice is
annexation.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il