Gantz: Our annexation plans won’t wait for Palestinians
With a week to go until the earliest date Israel can apply its sovereignty to portions of the West Bank, the government will not wait for Palestinian cooperation to move forward with the plan, Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz said Tuesday.
Moves toward annexation could break the long-term political stagnation between Israel and the Palestinians, which is one of the core ideas behind US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, said a source familiar with Gantz’s thinking on the matter.
If the Palestinians choose not to take part in talks with Israel about annexation, “then we will have to move forward without them,” he said. work to reduce as much as possible the danger of turning the State of Israel into a binational state, while making sure that Israel remains in control of its security.”
Gantz’s remarks come amid a split between him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with regard to the plan. Gantz, who is also the defense minister, has tried to be deeply involved in shaping the sovereignty map and other plans regarding the implementation of the Trump administration’s visions.
Netanyahu wants to move forward with the full 30% of the West Bank permitted under Trump’s peace plan. Gantz is thought to support annexing only a small area, preferably some of the major settlement blocs, with an eye toward quelling moderate Arab opposition.
Annexation “will have a long-term effect on Israel’s security,” and therefore, the “complicated” plans must be done in a responsible manner, Gantz said.
“We need the State of Israel to be safe, Jewish and democratic, as well as prosperous financially, and these plans should translate into practical concepts as what to do or what not to do,” he said.
The IDF has been preparing for various scenarios for several months under the name “Dawn in the Hills.” According to Gantz, defense officials and the IDF have worked through all the various scenarios that could happen if Israel announces it is extending its laws over parts of the West Bank.
Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi is working behind the scenes to thwart Israel’s annexation plan, an anonymous UN senior official told Army Radio. A UN official denied to The Jerusalem Post
to the Health Ministry.
The Education Ministry reported 789 students and faculty members were sick with coronavirus on Tuesday morning, some 21,969 were in isolation and 216 schools were closed.
Middle and high schools have already ended classes. Preschools and elementary schools finish on June 30. • them know if they have been in close proximity with a sick patient. However, the report notes that in Western countries, where these apps are voluntary, their distribution has been low, even less than 10%, making it difficult to learn about their effectiveness.
In Israel, the Health Ministry developed Magen, which can tell people if they have been in the presence of anyone who has been diagnosed with coronavirus. Recent reports indicate that the developers are working on improving the application and making it Bluetooth-enabled.
Another idea, according to the report, is to use a QR code at businesses or other establishments. The code would be scanned on entry. This is recommended because most infection occurs in closed spaces, and it “has relatively low impact on the privacy of the citizen,” the report said.
“This is a middle-ground approach” that does not require the individual to download an application, but rather the business, it said.
Other options include surveys or asking sick patients to reveal their location history in their phones once a diagnosis is made.
“In our opinion, the very existence of any location-monitoring app, such as Google Maps, should be used during the epidemiological investigation to help the individual recall where he has visited – assuming he willingly cooperates with the investigation,” the report said.
Efforts are underway, mostly in nondemocratic countries, to use technology to “catch” people who are breaking isolation through reviewing security-camera footage, smartphone records or tapping into data accessed via cellphone, credit-card or banking companies.
Austria, France and Germany have all recently launched applications similar to Israel’s Magen. Austria designed the “Stopp Corona-App,” which uses an anonymous contact diary that logs personal encounters using a “digital handshake.” The idea is that if a person becomes infected with coronavirus, all those who “digitally shook hands” with that person will be automatically informed that one of their contacts shows signs of an infection, and they will be asked to isolate. The infected person remains anonymous.
However, out of a population of nine million, only 400,000 people have downloaded this application, the report found.
France’s “StopCovid” app and Germany’s “Corona Warn App” warn users if they have come into contact with anyone infected with the coronavirus,too. France’s app has been downloaded by roughly 2% of the population.
Germany’s app suffered from setbacks because of disagreements over data privacy and functionality, so it only launched on June 16. For the app to be effective, about 6% of the population must download it, German health experts said. The IDF report did not include information about the number of Germans using it so far.
In contrast, Hong Kong and South Korea, for example, are leveraging extensive surveillance technologies. In Hong Kong, people retuning to the country from
abroad are given a digital tracking bracelet that they must wear at all times for 14 days. The isolates are under surveillance and risk fines if they violate their quarantine.
The digital bracelet has a QR code. The wearer downloads a tracking app called “StayHomeSafe” and scans the code. The code is received by the cellphone that allows the connection between the application and the bracelet.
The app knows where the isolates are at all times. If it senses a change, it sends an alert, and the bracelet needs to be scanned to confirm location.
In South Korea, authorities leverage information through credit-card companies and by watching footage on security cameras, in addition to other more standard protocols. Businesses are operating using the QR code check-in, and any company that does not implement the procedure is threatened with a fine. •