Currently Jerusalem is mulling plans to apply sovereignty to certain areas of the West Bank with negligible Palestinian populations, following parameters set forth in the peace proposal the Trump administration released in January. Moshe Koppel comments on how best to proceed:

There are two purposes in applying Israeli law [to parts of Judea and Samaria]: 1) to regulate and normalize life through unified, modern laws and to allow for long-term planning and 2) to make it clear that Israel is here for eternity. According to the Trump plan, the application of Israeli law entails a construction freeze and the start of a process that could theoretically end with a Palestinian state. The plan is very good for Israel, but two steps must be taken to ensure that the blessing doesn’t turn into a curse.

The first step is for Israel and the U.S. to sign a memorandum of understanding in which Washington will promise to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state until the Palestinians fulfill all eight of the conditions of the [American] plan, which they will most likely never do. It is important to remember that Donald Trump won’t always be president. Agreement on a map brings us closer to a Palestinian state without the conditions being fulfilled if a less friendly president moves into the White House. A signed memorandum might not bind the hands of another president, but American tradition would make it very hard for that president to ignore it.

The second step is to improve the maps attached to the Trump plan. Let’s tell the truth: these maps were drawn up in an almost criminally amateur manner. The current maps annex nearly 100,000 Arabs in the area of Biddu and Beit Lakiya to Israel and cut off entire cities from adjacent roads, as well as other elementary mistakes.

To make the maps viable, there is no need to institute major changes. The conceptual map gives Israel 32.4 percent of Judea and Samaria. Maintaining that same percentage, we could apply Israeli law to all settlements and the Jordan Valley, including the allocation of land for settlements, corridors to connect communities, and major transportation arteries. None of this would require bringing any Arab village inside the new lines.

To Mathias Döpfner, a German and the publisher of the online magazine Politico, the war between Israel and Iran

is a central front in a global contest in which the forces of tyranny and violence in recent years have been gaining ground against the forces of freedom, which too often are demoralized and divided. In a world full of bad actors, Iran is the most aggressive and dangerous totalitarian force of our time.

But Israel is only the first target. Once Israel falls, Europe and America will be the focus. . . . It is therefore surprising that Israel is not being celebrated worldwide for its historic, extremely precise, and necessary strike against Iranian nuclear-weapons facilities and for the targeted killing of leading terrorists, but that the public response is dominated by anti-Israel propaganda. The intelligence and precision of Israel’s actions are not admired but are instead used here and there to perpetuate blatantly anti-Semitic stereotypes.

If Israel does not achieve its goals—destruction of the nuclear facilities, maximum weakening of the terrorist regime, and, ideally, the removal of the mullahs—the world will quickly look very different. China will seize this historic opportunity to annex Taiwan sooner than expected. Largely without resistance. . . . That is why America and Europe, in their own interests alone, must stand united with Israel and do everything in their power to ensure that this historic liberation is achieved.