Netanyahu: We’ll build in West Bank despite ICC
Right-wing politicians demand gov’t legalize outposts • Shaked calls to legalize Ofra after attack
Israel is facing a fierce campaign over existing settlements because of efforts against it at the International Criminal Court, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Likud politicians on Monday, in response to criticism for not doing enough to advance settler activity in the West Bank.
Netanyahu said he is proceeding carefully in order to make sure everything is legal, because of the “aggressive campaign against settlements that were already built.” His spokesman confirmed that this smear campaign is coming straight from the ICC. The prime minister spoke in a closed section of the Likud faction regarding construction in Judea and Samaria.
Last week, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that she was close to a decision on whether to open a full-fledged criminal probe against Israel and Hamas for alleged war crimes. Her probe also includes West Bank settlement activity.
The government will continue building new homes in settlements despite pressure not to, Netanyahu assured the politicians.
“I am a prime minister who stood up to two very, very difficult US presidents for 12 years. We built and we built and we built,” Netanyahu said, referring to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. “There is no and there will be no government that is as successful in repelling these pressures and maneuvering around them on the matter of settlements.”
“We built and we built and we built,” he repeated, “with wisdom and great persistence. What you think is simple is much more complex, but we are navigating it wisely in order to find the way, and when we find it, we will build and we will have the [Israeli] court’s backing.”
If he is unable to get support from the High Court of Justice, Netanyahu added that things might change, but in the meantime he is trying make sure it doesn’t face opposition in court.
Netanyahu’s comments came hours after right wing politicians renewed their push to legalize all West Bank outposts on state land in the aftermath of Sunday night’s terror attack that injured seven outside of the Ofra settlement, including a 21-year-old pregnant woman.
Bayit Yehudi MK Bezalel Smotrich plans to submit a bill to the Ministerial Legislative Committee for debate this Sunday that will set a two-year timetable to authorize those fledgling communities – which currently have an illegal status – as either new settlements or neighborhoods of existing ones.
He spoke of the bill during a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that had been scheduled prior to the attack.
Separately, politicians called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fast track the process by which over 400 unauthorized homes in the Ofra settlement could be legalized independently of that law.
They said that a legal opinion by the defense ministry, which was put forward this summer could allow for their authorization, but that the process needs Netanyahu’s approval in order to advance.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked tweeted: “The legal opinion is already prepared. In response to the [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s] ‘price for terrorism’” – meaning the PA’s payments to terrorists in Israeli prisons – “we are setting our own prices: Every terrorist attack will strengthen settlements instead of weakening them, and every potential terrorist will know in advance that his name will be on the strengthening of settlements.”