Annexation and Sovereignty. Enough with Ideology. Consider Reality

Too often, annexation of territory to Israel is lost in a useless debate between warring ideologies that will never be resolved.

Such debates avoid a discussion of reality on the ground where no dispute exists.

Take, for example, Gilo and Beit Jalla, located in Jewish Southern Jerusalem and Arab Suburban Bethlehem. Two towns which face each other, with a valley in between. Each called by in the same name, yet in Hebrew and in Arabic. They both mean “rejoicing”.

Yet there was little rejoicing twenty year ago, when gunmen shot daily into Gilo, posing a daily lethal threat to the lives of every Jew and Arab in Southern Jerusalem.

Then one day, Beit Jalla stopped firing into Gilo. Very few people stop to ask how and why that occurred. For one reason. The Israel Defense Forces, without any fanfare, drove into Beit Jalla and crushed the presence of the armed Palestine Liberation Organization from the Arab town.

Things have been quiet ever since.

As someone who accompanies journalists to the scene of the action, it is easy to discern the permanent presence of the IDF in Beit Jalla, as a reason to protect Jerusalem from the PLO.

In other words, Israel annexed Beit Jalla. No one objected.

That is only the reason that Israel will annex all of Judea and Samaria:

To protect Israel from the guns and missiles of the PLO, which remains at war with Israel.

Just look on a map, which neither side of the political spectrum is wont to do.