Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday vowed to annex not only the Jordan Valley if he wins the upcoming elections, but also all the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The comments in a speech launching his Likud party’s election campaign, came hours after Netanyahu’s main rival, centrist leader Benny Gantz, promised to apply Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.
Addressing a mostly young crowd of enthusiastic supporters at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center, Netanyahu said his government would “immediately” extend Israeli sovereignty over all West Bank settlements “without exception.”
He repeatedly denounced Gantz’s Blue and White party as “left-wing,” seeking to counter Gantz’s vow earlier Tuesday to annex the Jordan Valley “in coordination with the international community” if he wins the upcoming election.
In what appeared to be the top centrist lawmaker’s latest effort to cater to right-leaning voters, Gantz, during a visit to what he referred to as “Israel’s eastern protective wall,” said the area making up roughly 20 percent of the West Bank would remain part of the Jewish state in any future peace agreement and that previous governments which had been willing to negotiate over the strategic region ha
Gantz’s statement was criticized by some within Blue and White. On Tuesday evening Gantz sought to slightly walk back his statement, telling his party’s lawmakers in a WhatsApp group: “Go back and listen carefully to my words, they have nothing to do with unilateral annexation.”
The only way for Israel to annex to Jordan Valley with the agreement of the international community would be under a negotiated peace deal with the Palestinians, who claim the entire West Bank for a future state.
Right-wing officials and settler leaders largely scoffed at Gantz’s pledge. Suggesting that it was nothing more than a bluff, Netanyahu urged the Blue and White leader not to wait until after the election, but rather support the measure if it is brought before the Knesset for a vote in the coming weeks.
“Benny Gantz, I expect an answer by the end of the day,” Netanyahu said in a statement challenging the Blue and White leader. READ MORE
