But Mr. Netanyahu’s pledge has fueled concerns among Palestinian residents that they would be confined to isolated islands. “What he’s saying is we should be put in small bird cages,” said Hazem Abu Jish, 53, a convenience store owner in Furush Beit Dajan, a village in the northern Jordan Valley. Will I no longer be able to drive there in a half-hour?”Jihad Abu al-Asal, the Palestinian Authority’s governor of Jericho and the Jordan Valley, said that Mr. Netanyahu seemed to be willing to jeopardize Palestinian communities to advance annexation. “He thinks we are like pawns,” Mr. Abu al-Asal said in an interview. A conceptual map in the Trump administration’s proposal leaves Jericho under Palestinian control, as does a map Mr. Netanyahu proposed when he first promised to annex the valley last fall.

Source: New York Times June 24, 2020 20:02 UTC