A viral video on X shows Druze residents in the Golan Heights village of Hader, formerly occupied by Syria, voting to request that Israel annex their village. It is reported that six Druze villages have requested Israeli annexation.
If Israel accepts this proposal, then the United States 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 Druze villages to possible annihilation by their enemies in post-Assad Syria.
Residents of Southern Lebanon and the embattled Kurds might also want to consider this possibility. A territory voluntarily surrendering its sovereignty, 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 United States and the United Kingdom. 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 attended by representatives of numerous constituencies within these areas. The mayors of Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah, together with the other participants, adopted what became known as the Jericho Resolutions. Among other things, the 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.
Instead of seeking to have an independent state in the areas that Jordan conquered and occupied, the residents ceded any rights they may have had to Jordan. The Arab 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).
Jews were forcibly expelled from the areas conquered by Jordan; their homes were seized and their synagogues demolished. The Palestinian Liberation Organization, predecessor to the Palestinian Authority, 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 goals were Arab unity and the destruction of Israel.
The United States went further than tacitly accepting Jordan’s illegal occupation. Astoundingly, it approved of the measure but did not wish it publicized, as disclosed in a footnote to an internal policy statement, dated April 17, 1950: “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 that 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 U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson was asked about the Jordanian annexation in a news conference, on April 26, 1950, U.S. State Department records that he responded, saying, “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 agreed to respect each other’s sovereign territorial integrity and political independence over the land within its borders as demarcated by the treaty and recognized international border between Israel and Jordan being the Jordan River.
These articles effectively cede Jordan’s sovereignty over its former western 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 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 Palestinian Authority and their allies.
The spectacular Israeli victories over Hamas and Hezbollah, in addition to other Iranian proxies and protégées, have ushered in a new reality of peace through strength. Now is not a time to retreat and re-engage in failed policies of appeasement; we must advance with innovative solutions to festering problems. Voluntary union is one such solution, and it should be supported. May the blessings of genuine peace prevail.