Annexation a Betrayal of the Zionist Dream? Really?

In an English language print newspaper, Chuck Freilich writes that the only existential threat currently facing Israel comes from Israel’s ultra-right (read: Bayit Yehudi) and Bibi Netanyahu. Not Hamas in the south, not Hezbollah in north, but from one third of the Israeli electorate.

Because Bibi will do anything to avoid a jail term, he is willing to annex at least parts of the West Bank. And this would signal the death knell for the Two State Solution, whose viability is fading almost by the day.

Or so Freilich would have us believe.

In fact, though, it is just so much fear-mongering.

The feasibility of a Two State Solution is questionable at this point. In fact, granting a TSS is likely a greater threat to Israel’s security than the status quo.

Furthermore, annexation doesn’t mean total dissolution of the Palestinian Authority. Given the nature of democracy and the Knesset makeup, it is likely any annexation will be limited to consensus areas such as Gush Etzion and Maale Adumim.

Freilich fears over implementing even this limited annexation – which reflects an existing reality and is not in and of itself an aggressive land-grab – are rather dramatic: the collapse of the PA, rockets from the Palestinian territories, a renewed intifada.

But maybe for Freilich fear-mongering really is the only way out. Despite his pessimism (or his “desperate hope”) that a TSS will become a reality, the only way he sees for Israel to avoid its only existential threat is for Israel to abandon broad swaths of its land.