Eyeing Trump support, Israeli minister pushes for West Bank settlement annexation
CNN
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has ordered preparations for the annexation of settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has ordered preparations for the annexation of settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Smotrich, who is in charge of the settlements, said on Monday that he had instructed his department to “prepare the necessary infrastructure for applying sovereignty.” It is unclear whether his long-standing desire to apply full Israeli law in West Bank settlements has any chance of being implemented soon. His announcement was likely motivated in large part by staking out political ground in Israel’s fractious domestic politics. President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the US election “brings an important opportunity for the State of Israel,” Smotrich told the Knesset, or Israeli parliament. The “only way to remove” the “threat” of a Palestinian state, Smotrich added, “is to apply Israeli sovereignty over the entire settlements in Judea and Samaria,” the biblical term by which Israelis refer to the West Bank. Israel has occupied the West Bank since seizing the territory from Jordan in 1967. In the decades since, it has expanded Jewish settlements in the area, which are considered illegal under international law, despite signing a series of peace agreements with the Palestinians in the 1990s.
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