Defense Minister Pushes to Extend Israeli Sovereignty to West Bank Settlements
A leading government hawk called on Wednesday for Israel to establish sovereignty over nearly a third of the occupied West Bank, hours after U.S. Donald Trump announced a Middle East peace plan that Palestinians said…
A leading government hawk called on Wednesday for Israel to establish sovereignty over nearly a third of the occupied West Bank, hours after U.S. Donald Trump announced a Middle East peace plan that Palestinians said amounted to apartheid.
The remarks by Naftali Bennett, a coalition partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, led Palestinians to say Trump’s plan had given the “green light” for Israel to formally annex its settlements in the West Bank that it has occupied since the 1967 Middle East War.
Trump’s plan envisages a two-state solution with Israel and a future Palestinian state living alongside each other, but with strict conditions that Palestinians have baulked at.
He proposed a four-year schedule for the creation of a Palestinian state, with Palestinians first having to agree to halt attacks by the Islamist militant group Hamas which controls the enclave of Gaza.
But the plan also gave U.S. recognition of Israel’s West Bank settlements – deemed illegal under international law – Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley, and a redrawn, demilitarized Palestinian state that would meet Israel’s security requirements.
Jerusalem would be the undivided capital of Israel, it said.
ELECTION JOSTLING
With Netanyahu still outside Israel after attending the plan’s presentation in Washington, Bennett outlined his hardline interpretation of what the White House had offered Israel.
“Last night history knocked on the door of our home and gave us a one-time opportunity to apply Israeli law on all settlements in Samaria, Judea, the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea,” Bennett said, using the Hebrew names for areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.