Share

10 September 2019In search of consensus in view of the upcoming political elections on 17 September, Benjamin Netanyahu lit another fuse in the Middle Eastern powder keg, promising voters that, in case of victory, Israel will annex the Jordan Valley. "It is a place on which we can affirm our sovereignty immediately after the elections," said the Israeli prime minister, with a move destined, if it becomes a reality, to definitively destroy the opportunities for the birth of a Palestinian state.

The Jordan Valley, in fact, constitutes one third of the West Bank, and a large part of it is in 60% of territories where Israeli settlers have settled over the years.

The proposal reacted, Hanan Ashrawi, a high Palestinian official, "destroys all possibility of peace" in an area where rockets and drones have been coming and going for days. "The region will fall into violence," said Jordanian foreign minister Aymane Safadi, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated that "such a perspective has no effect on international law" and, instead, "it would be devastating for a possible re-launch of the negotiations and the two-state solution".