Netanyahu: Israel Must Keep Military Control of Jordan Valley

Will Never Allow Palestinians Control Over Their Own Border

Jason Ditz 

Posted onJune 5, 2017CategoriesNewsTagsIsrael, Jordan, Palestine

Speaking today at a ceremony celebrating the 50-year anniversary of Israel’s military conquest of the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel would always retain full military control over the Jordan Valley irrespective of any future deals with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu insisted that the Palestinians would have both publicly endorse Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people” and to cede to them permanent security control of “all the territory west of the Jordan Valley.”

This has been suggested by Israeli officials in the past, and “west of the Jordan Valley” effectively means that if the Palestinians ever did manage to get independence after generations of Israeli occupation, their external borders would still be occupied in perpetuity.

Netanyahu stayed away from any particular mention of a two-state solution during the speech, beyond declaring what he wanted the Palestinians to give him he made no suggestion that the Palestinians would actually get anything in return.
Israel’s current far-right government has members deeply opposed to Palestinian statehood as a basic concept, and want to simply annex the territory and make the occupation permanent.

http://news.antiwar.com/2017/06/05/netanyahu-israel-must-keep-military-control-of-jordan-valley/