What did US Ambassador David Friedman mean when he hinted in a June 8 New York Times interview of possible Israeli annexation of certain parts of the West Bank? What lies behind the declarations by presidential envoys Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt regarding alternatives to the two-state solution? How can a ruler control lands that are not his without imposing sovereignty over them and make arbitrary decisions about granting or withholding citizenship from the residents? It turns out such a scenario is feasible. See the five-year plan — for supposedly reducing socio-economic inequality between Jews and Arabs — designed to complete the annexation of the core sections of Arab East Jerusalem, and a complementary measure to disengage from the Palestinian neighborhoods on the other side of the separation wall that runs between them and the city.

For over 50 years, ever since the 1967 Six-Day War, the state has tried to draw more Jews into East Jerusalem and to push out the Palestinians. The result is rather grim. According to data issued by the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research on the occasion of Jerusalem Day, which marks the city’s 1967 “unification,” 17,000 residents left the “reunited city” in 2017 while only 11,000 people moved there. Some 96% of those emigrating from the city are Jews. The city’s population numbered some 900,000 at the end of 2017, 62% of them Jews. If these demographic trends persist, the Jews might be a minority in the city by 2045.

The facts neither back up the plans to “Judaize” Jerusalem nor the festive declarations about “city unity,” because real unity is impossible absent equality for all residents and equal budgetary allocation for public services and infrastructure construction. In a special May 2018 report on the development and strengthening of Jerusalem, the State Comptroller wrote that 76% of the residents in East Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods, 85% of them children, subsist below the poverty line. The average per capita monthly income in the Arab neighborhoods is very low — 40% that of West Jerusalem’s residents. The physical infrastructure in all the East Jerusalem neighborhoods is crumbling and they suffer from a significant shortage of classrooms and public facilities.

The Israeli political leadership, both right and left, understands that the state cannot preserve Jerusalem in its current municipal boundaries while keeping a Jewish majority there. The persistent failure by all of Israel’s governments to square the circle — i.e., to maintain a Jewish majority in the city and control of its entire area (in its current municipal boundaries) — has generated a double move. Netanyahu’s government would like to complete the annexation of East Jerusalem’s inner parts, especially the area of the Holy Basin, and at the same time sever its external reaches, namely those Palestinian neighborhoods that are located on the external side of the separation wall. For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, such a double move would become a first step on the way to disengaging from the Palestinians. It would serve as a pilot program ahead of Israel annexing Area C, which is under Israeli control and represents about 60% of West Bank lands.