Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s sovereignty plan will cover a far smaller area than originally envisioned, according to a report by Channel 12 Friday.
The sovereignty plan, which is expected to be formally introduced sometime after July 1st, had originally been modeled along the borders laid out by the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan.
That would entail Israel applying sovereignty over some 30% of Judea and Samaria, including most of the Jordan Valley, and virtually all Israeli towns in the area.
But a report by Channel 12 citing a senior Palestinian Authority official claims that Israel has signaled that it is preparing to pursue a scaled-down sovereignty plan, one which will extend only to a handful of settlement blocs – and exclude the Jordan Valley entirely.
According to the senior PA official, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen’s recent visit to Jordan relayed a message to the Hashemite Kingdom that Israel will not apply sovereignty over the Jordan Valley – a major bone of contention between Israel and Jordan’s government.
In addition, the source claimed that, at this stage, Israel indicated that limit the application of sovereignty to just two or three settlement blocs, though no specific blocs were named.
Details of the upcoming sovereignty plan remain under wraps, and there has been no official statement regarding Friday’s report.