The Israeli government is considering applying Israeli civil law jurisdiction and administration to parts of the Jordan Valley and/or certain settlement blocs. This possibility was proposed under the US Trump Administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and agreed in the broad national coalition agreement between most of Israel’s political parties. The specific areas and timings are under internal negotiation.
There is a lot of controversy in Israel and worldwide about whether this is a wise or even legal step, as is apparent in the incandescent opinion of Ben Saul, writing in the Herald on Thursday about Irael’s so-called “annexation” plans.
If it goes ahead, Israel would replace military governance under the civil laws of Turkey and Jordan (the prior “occupiers”) with governance under Israeli civil laws. That is what happened when Israel declared the united city of Jerusalem to be part of Israel, after acquiring control when defending itself from Jordan in 1967, but this approach wasn’t extended to the rest of the area that was Jordan’s “West Bank”.
Instead, a pragmatic Israeli approach was pursued that would ultimately enable Palestinian Arab self-determination over most areas there populated by them, while ensuring the security of Jewish self-determination by controlling areas of strategic defence importance, thus hopefully enabling a sustainable peaceful solution between them.
Read the article by Prof Gregory Rose in The Sydney Morning Herald.