The United States has repeatedly stressed this position before and after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was sworn in last week. Netanyahu’s right-religious coalition has agreed to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank and legalize dozens of wildcat outposts. The first clause of its overall government guidelines specifies: “The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel” — an area that includes the biblical Judea and Samaria, today’s West Bank.
Netanyahu’s Likud party has also agreed in principle with the far-right Religious Zionism faction to work to annex large parts of the West Bank. However, those two parties’ coalition deal includes a clause giving the premier an effective veto, which he is likely to maintain, as he seeks a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia. READ MORE
