Post-Assad Syria Presents a Matrix of Challenges, Potential Opportunities
Consider the viral video on X, which depicts Druze residents of the village of Hader, in the portion of the Golan Heights formerly occupied by Syria, voting to request that Israel annex their village.
It's reported that thus far a total of six such Druze villages have requested Israeli annexation.
Many of the villagers have relatives in the existing and very successful Druze communities in Israel, who enjoy the benefits of citizenship, including civil rights, freedom of speech and religion and equal protection under the law. Is it any wonder that they would like to join them and become a part of Israel?
If Israel accepts this proposal, then the U.S. and other nations should approach the matter with moral clarity and rightly support such a union. To do otherwise is to abandon the residents of these innocent Druze villages to possible annihilation by their enemies in post-Assad Syria.
The residents of South Lebanon and the embattled Kurds might also consider this possibility. A territory voluntarily surrendering its sovereignty and allowing itself to be absorbed is not prohibited acquisition of territory by use of force in a war of aggression and conquest.
There are numerous examples of voluntary unions including the very formation of the U.S. and the UK.
In this regard, it should be noted that there is a very interesting precedent that I found in the declassified U.S. State Department files that, ironically, is relevant to this analysis.
By way of background, after Jordan illegally conquered Judea and Samaria, including the eastern portion of Jerusalem, in 1948, it sought to legitimize its conquest of these areas, which it proceeded to rename the West Bank of Jordan.
On Dec. 1, 1948, it organized a conference in Jericho that was attended by representatives of numerous constituencies within these areas. In attendance were the Mayors of Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah and they, together with the other attendees, adopted what became known as the Jericho Resolutions.
Among other things, the Jericho Resolutions confirmed the desire of the Arab residents of the so-called West Bank to be immediately annexed to Jordan. Subsequent conferences occurred in Ramallah and then Nablus, which declared their support for the Jericho Resolutions.
Thus, instead of seeking to have an independent state in these areas Jordan conquered and occupied, the residents ceded any rights they may have had to Jordan.
The Arab (not Jewish) residents of these areas were granted Jordanian citizenship (including voting rights) in December of 1949 (see Article 3, subsection (2), of Jordanian Law No. 6 of 1954 on Nationality).
Indeed, Jews were forcibly expelled from the areas conquered by Jordan and their homes were seized and synagogues demolished.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization, predecessor to the Palestinian Authority (PA), also recognized Jordan’s sovereignty over the so-called West Bank.
It expressly provided in Article 24 of its original Charter of 1964 that it exercised no sovereignty over the West Bank that belonged to Jordan.
Interestingly, it also expressly declared it exercised no sovereignty over Gaza. Its professed twin goals were Arab unity and the destruction of Israel.
The US went further than just tacitly accepting Jordan’s illegal occupation.
Astoundingly, it actually approved, but did not wish it to be publicized, as disclosed in a footnote to an internal Policy Statement, dated April 17, 1950, as follows:
"The policy of the Department, as stated in a paper on this subject prepared for the Foreign Ministers meetings in London in May was in favor of the incorporation of Central Palestine into Jordan but desired that it be done gradually and not by sudden proclamation.
However, the footnote to the Policy Statement did not end there, it went on to say, as follows:
"Once the annexation took place, the Department approved of the action “in the sense that it represents a logical development of the situation which took place as a result of a free expression of the will of the people. . . . The United States continues to wish to avoid a public expression of approval of the union."
When Secretary of State Dean Acheson was asked about the Jordanian annexation in a news conference, on April 26, 1950, the State Department records he responded, as follows:
"Mr. Acheson remarked that our American attitude was that normally we had no objection whatever to the union of people who were mutually desirous of this new relationship."
As an aside, like any other sovereign state, Jordan could negotiate and barter away sovereignty over any of its land.
Thus, in the Treaty of Peace, dated Oct. 26, 1994, between Jordan and Israel, Article 3, demarcates the international boundary between Israel and Jordan as the Jordan River.
Under Article 2, each party recognized and agreed to respect each other’s sovereign territorial integrity and political independence over the land within its borders as demarcated by the Treaty and declared the boundary noted above as the permanent secure, and recognized international border between Israel and Jordan; effectively ceding sovereignty over its former West Bank to Israel.
There is no explicit carveout for any claim of sovereignty by so-called Palestinians to the West Bank. The purpose of this analysis is not to assert that Israel’s claim to sovereignty over Jerusalem is established solely on this basis.
Rather, it is intended to bring to light the lack of any objectively sound foundation for the myriad of false and baseless assertions that have been made by the propaganda organs of Hamas, the PA and their allies.
The spectacular Israeli victories over Hamas and Hezbollah and other Iranian Regime proxies and protégées have ushered in a new reality of peace through strength.
Now is not a time to retreat and renew the pursuit of failed policies of appeasement.
Rather, let’s advance and engage in innovative solutions that can improve life and not just preserve the status quo. Voluntary union is such a solution. It should be supported.
Leonard Grunstein, a retired attorney and banker, founded and served as Chairman of Metropolitan National Bank and then Israel Discount Bank of NY. He also founded Project Ezrah and serves on the Board of Revel at Yeshiva University and the AIPAC National Council. He has published articles in the Banking Law Journal, Real Estate Finance Journal, and other publications. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
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