The recent series of short-interval elections taught elected Israeli officials that they need to change their habits. In the past, they would remove their masks immediately after elections in order to try and lead the public down the road they really wanted. Late Prime Minister Menachem Begin made a full retreat from the Sinai Peninsula; late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin stated before the 1992 elections that only a madman would withdraw from the Golan Heights, but afterward he informed American Secretary of State Christopher Warren that he was prepared to withdraw fully from the Heights if Israel’s security needs were addressed; and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swore before the 2009 elections that he would not allow a Palestinian state to be formed, but afterward came his famous Bar Ilan speech. Now, however, Israeli politicians are worried about the chances for another (fourth) round of elections in the near future. They know that another round in such a short interval would immediately reveal the gap between their election promises and their readiness to fulfill those promises.

Due to this awkward state of affairs, a new phenomenon has been created in recent months: Politicians are wearing their masks for longer periods of time than in the past. Thus, we find ourselves in never-ending election cycles in which propaganda and policy are mixed together, making it very difficult to distinguish between the two.

One excellent example of the above is the possibility of annexation of the Jordan Valley. As aforementioned, in 2009 Benjamin Netanyahu joined the “splitting up of Israel” camp, though his reasons were purely demographic. From that point in time and onward, the Jordan Valley was considered territory from which Israel was supposed to retreat if Netanyahu’s conditions for the establishment of a Palestinian state were to be realized. Even in his ultranationalist speeches, Netanyahu talked about the need to remain on the site for 40 years after signing a permanent agreement with the PLO, even though many people in the security establishment felt this to be unnecessary. The prime minister was careful to pick his words and say that the Israel Defense Forces would remain on the Jordan River and not the Jordan Valley. Israel was never able to populate the valley with hordes of settlers, and most of the settlers in the valley are not extremists. Thus, their evacuation would evidently not involve violent confrontations with a crying and screaming population.

Despite all that, Israelis nowadays look differently at the Jordan Valley. In public opinion, it has morphed into the new Western Wall, the bedrock of our very existence — nothing is more urgent than to annex it to Israel. Insiders understand that annexation of the Jordan Valley will not shake the ground more than the American recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. Nothing has changed in the lives of the settlers on the Golan Heights since that American recognition. They are well aware that different rulership in Syria may lead an Israeli government, both right- and left-based governments, to try to renew peace talks with our northeast neighbors. This would end with an Israeli retreat from the Heights and cancellation of the 1981 annexation law.