Weekly Commentary: Annex Jordan Valley With Jericho
Dr. Aaron Lerner 11 April 2019

For months the latest "Brass For Withdrawal" group has been running
advertisements on buses with the message that the 2019 elections was over
the choice between annexation and separation.

In the waning hours of the campaign Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
appeared to accept this claim and made headlines talking about annexation.

And the world did not come crashing down on us.

So if we are already talking about annexation, be it within the framework
of Mr. Trump's "deal" or in the wake of the failure of the "deal", it is
appropriate to consider the advantage of adding Jericho to the annexation of
the Jordan Valley.

Annexing the Jordan Valley would serves to insure our hold on this strategic
territory while land-locking any future Palestinian entity that might
develop in the future this side of the Jordan River.

Annexing Jericho at the same time would be a win-win for all concerned:

+ Instead of annexation of the Jordan Valley isolating Jericho the move
would connect this tourist city to the huge domestic Israeli market while
making it magnitudes more accessible for international tourism.

+ The small size of Jericho (city of around twenty thousand while the entire
"Jericho & Al-Aghwar Governorate" is only around fifty thousand) is such
that granting Israeli citizenship to the entire population has no
demographic consequences.

Yes, such a move might be initially met by the residents of Jericho with a
public display of crocodile tears. But with proper implementation the
tangible rapid improvement in quality of life would set an important
favorable precedent for continuing annexation in other areas - such as Area
C.

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