Great points, but here's a devil's advocacy

Submitted by Dave (United States), May 7, 2020 at 12:01

How long have these go-nowhere negotiations been going on? Fifty years or so? The entire exercise has become a kind of mummery allowing the various powers to seem sympathetic to the Arabs while ostensibly supporting Israel's security concerns, thereby maintaining a "moral" and strategic relationship with the key players. Yet, nothing ever happens because the poor, victimized Muslims are still handing out awards to murderers while they dream of caliphates and the days when infidels knew their place.

Annexation would shake things up. It would say that Israel is through playing charades and wants to take care of her citizens who are in legal limbo and that she is no longer willing to hold more secure borders hostage to a never-ending, fake "peace process". The correct way to annex would be to expand, but to consider the Arabs as an enemy population who could either be transferred to Arab countries or possibly be given full rights should they be willing to accept the responsibilities of citizenship. In no case should they be voting to decide security issues. Don't feel bad, a large chunk of Israel's Jewish population were expelled by the Arabs after the '48 war, so fair is fair.

Initially there will be a brouhaha, as there was when Israel annexed the Golan, but eventually things will quiet down. Israel has a large and growing population and needs room to expand. There should be no qualms about doing so at the expense of her enemies. As for the EU and Trump and the rest of the international community, as Hugh Fitzgerald has put it, only Israel should make life and death decisions for herself. Recall that NATO sat on its hands when the Russians invaded Georgia and Ukraine and when Turkey invaded Cyprus, and they have sat by passively through the bloody Syrian civil war, even when Russia serially bombed medical facilities. The "international community" is a toothless farce, and the Arab monarchies are medieval fossils. It's time for Israel to beak out and become a bigger country. Power gets respect, especially in a region where power is sacred.

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