Prof. Avi Barali did not need the common arguments in his article on applying sovereignty in the Jordan Valley (31.05). He does not claim that it is not permissible to give up land or parts of it because it was given to the people of Israel by his God. Nor does it depend on the "security vitality" to secure the valley under our sovereignty, in order to meet the "eastern front" gap. He also probably noticed that this front was moved to the Jordan-Iraq border in 1994, and that the 95,000 square miles of Jordanian sovereignty are our true security belt in the last quarter century. He admits that "we must surely fight against Ramallah and Hamas, Jordan, The United Nations and the Hague, but this is a worthwhile price, because annexation is a vital interest, in his opinion.

What is so essential during the detachment from an agreement with our neighbors, and which has not been done by any right or left government in the last 53 years? His reply is that the annexation will thwart the Arab demographic plan, which he claims is "to foster immigration that will flow to Israel and undermine its Jewish character." Well, Raleigh first proposes to annex one-third of the West Bank for about 50,000 Palestinians, and grant them Israeli citizenship, and then he believes that sovereign Israel will prevent Palestinian immigration to the territory west of the Jordan. That is how the Jewish majority is guaranteed! 

On the one hand, my mind rests. Raleigh and I are on the same side of the barricade. We both understand that the significance of Zionism is the existence of a Jewish and democratic state in the Land of Israel, whose gates are open to Jews through the Law of Return, and promises that there will never be a situation where Jews will be denied refuge. I would like to assume that he would be happy if the Palestinians also had a state (or "minus state," as he said), because they also have a right of self-determination, and because we have a strategic interest in preventing our closest neighbors from passing on generation to generation.

But if I am right, and do not misconceive it, is it even more difficult for me to understand how Barley believes that annexing territory that would not allow any future Palestinian leader to establish a country without it, and to host the thousands of Palestinians living in it, is the solution that will secure a Jewish majority without deportation or intimidation? 

Anyone who believes the demographic problem is an invention, and that Israel can annex the territories without granting citizenship to the Palestinians living on it, can annex the Valley and everything left over from the West Bank, and take advantage of Trump's desire to make his evangelical supporters happy even before the presidential election. But anyone who wants to secure both a Jewish majority and democracy cannot embrace Barley's proposal, and must adopt a solution that has a clear border between Israel and Palestine, after the right-wing torpedo in 1987, following the London agreement, the last opportunity for a Jordanian-Palestinian solution.