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Likud Platforms 1996 to 2014: "Permanent Eastern Border"

The 1977 Likud platform is the famous one. But a party platform is rewritten for each election, and a reader may fairly ask whether Likud ever changed its mind. The record says no. Through the Oslo peace process of the 1990s, through Netanyahu's first term as prime minister, through the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, and into the party's 2014 constitution, Likud's written program kept the Jordan River as Israel's eastern border and kept rejecting a Palestinian state west of it. The words changed. The line did not.

1996: the Jordan as "the permanent border"​

In 1996, after the Oslo Accords and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Benjamin Netanyahu won his first election. His party's platform, as quoted by an X user, said: "The Jordan River shall be the eastern border of the State of Israel, south of Lake Kinneret. This will be the permanent border between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan" (Hamid on X, 13 December 2023). Lake Kinneret is the Sea of Galilee; "south of Lake Kinneret" means the entire length of the West Bank's eastern edge.

1999: "flatly rejects" a Palestinian state​

The 1999 platform, reproduced by the writer Jonathan Weiler under the headline "The Hateful Likud Charter Calls for Destruction of Any Palestinian State," contains these clauses (AUPHR, 4 August 2014; the same text was reprinted by the Free Muslims Coalition, 4 August 2014):

  • "The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel."
  • "Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem."
  • "The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river."
  • "The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting."

A reader on Reddit who quoted the platform's peace section added its next lines: "The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel's existence, security and national needs" (r/IsraelPalestine, 29 October 2023). Self-rule without a state, and a permanent border at the river: that is the narrow Greater Israel with a Palestinian population inside it. The same platform calls the Kingdom of Jordan "a desirable partner in the permanent status arrangement," which is to say the Palestinians' state question would be answered from Amman, not in the West Bank.

Weiler's conclusion after reading the documents: "the Likud Party has never in its statements of principles accepted a Palestinian State."

2002: on the Knesset website​

In February 2017, when Netanyahu said "Israel must keep security control of all territory west of the Jordan River" (Tony Karon on X, 15 February 2017), the analyst Yousef Munayyer pointed out that "No 'Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river' is from the Likud party platform, verbatim" (Yousef Munayyer on X, 15 February 2017). The journalist Ben Norton posted the 2002 platform from the Knesset's own website: "Israel flatly rejects" a Palestinian state west of the Jordan river (Ben Norton on X, 15 February 2017).

2009: the Jerusalem clause​

A 2025 summary of the platforms, citing TRT World's history, says the 2009 version, adopted after Netanyahu became party leader, "also opposed the two-state solution" and "threatened that any attempt to divide Jerusalem would lead to a regional war" (argumate on Tumblr, 18 April 2025). That same year Netanyahu gave a speech at Bar-Ilan University that mentioned a demilitarized Palestinian state. The party program never adopted it, and by 2015, Jacob Linker writes, "Bibi tacked right and began to oppose a Palestinian State" (Jacob Linker on X, 20 August 2025).

2014: the constitution​

The Likud constitution of 2014 commits the party to "Preserving the right of the Jewish people over the Land of Israel, as an indisputable eternal right, persevering in the settlement and development of all parts of the Land of Israel and applying the sovereignty of the state to them" (Likud constitution, Hebrew PDF, as translated in a Quora answer). "Applying the sovereignty of the state to them" is annexation, written into the party's founding law.

In July 2014 Netanyahu put it in his own words at a press conference: "there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan" (as quoted by Weiler). Human Rights Watch quotes him in July 2019: "Israeli military and security forces will continue to rule the entire territory, up to the Jordan [River]" (as quoted from HRW's 2021 report "A Threshold Crossed" in Yodysseus on X).

The thread from 1977 to today​

1977: "only Israeli sovereignty" between the sea and the Jordan. 1996: the Jordan as "the permanent border." 1999 and 2002: a Palestinian state west of the Jordan "flatly" rejected. 2014: "applying the sovereignty of the state" to all parts of the land. 2022: the coalition guidelines declare an "exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel" (see The 2022 Guidelines and the Nation-State Law). 2025: the Knesset votes 71 to 13 to apply sovereignty. 2026: Netanyahu says there is "no room" for a Palestinian state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, asked the obvious question after that June 2026 statement: "So what is there? A single…" (repost of Kenneth Roth, 29 June 2026).

Evidence rating: Likud's platforms from 1996 to 2014 keep the Jordan as Israel's permanent eastern border and reject a Palestinian state west of it: CONFIRMED.

Status: Benjamin Netanyahu, Jonathan Weiler, Yousef Munayyer, Ben Norton, Tony Karon, Jacob Linker, and Kenneth Roth are alive. Nothing on this page states that any of them committed a crime.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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