Israel's ‘Narrow Waist’ and the Fate of Palestinian Localities in the Triangle Area Inside Israel

This paper challenges the veracity of Israel's discourse of threat revolving around its so-called ‘narrow waist’ area in the central part of the state – a discourse that has been sustained and reproduced for more than half a century. The fact that both Israeli top leaders, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz (head of the Blue-White party) have endorsed President Trump's “Deal of the Century” (DoC) and have agreed to transfer ten Palestinian towns (pop. ca. 350,000 residents) located inside Israel's sovereign territory (The Triangle) to a Palestinian political entity cobbled together in the West Bank is in itself an anti-thesis to its own discourse of threat. The proposed exit of those towns from Israel's sovereign area will necessitate a new delineation of the Green Line, shifting it further westward inside Israel's ‘narrow waist,’ a distance of some 2 to 5 km and perhaps more. In other words, this ‘narrow waist’ will be rendered even narrower by at least 25% in specific sections. This is clear corroboration that Israel is crafting an array of strategic mythogemes in its discourse to suit its own political stance in order to defy international laws and relevant UN resolutions which call for a return of occupied Palestinian territories taken by force in wartime.