Likud and Yamina attempt to out-Right each other for votes

PM approves new Jordan Valley settlement • Shaked: Netanyahu set to give away most of West Bank

Forty-eight hours before Israelis go to the polls for a second Knesset election in five months, the main parties on the Right turned to the West Bank in an attempt shore up support. Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party and Yamina, led by Ayelet Shaked, went head to head in an effort to convince voters that each was more committed to making the areas beyond the Green Line a sovereign part of Israel.

Ministers gave their authorization for the creation of the settlement of Mevo’ot Yericho during a first-ever cabinet meeting in the Jordan Valley designed to symbolize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to annex all West Bank settlements.

Netanyahu said he would be “applying Israeli sovereignty over all of the communities in Judea and Samaria, both those in blocs – including the area of the blocs, and also those outside the blocs – as well as additional areas that are vital for our security and for ensuring our heritage. These things will come up in the plan of the century; it will come very fast after the elections.”

At the same time, Shaked and Yamina candidate Naftali Bennett publicized a map of the West Bank that they said reflected Trump’s “Deal of the Century,” which involves only settlement enclaves becoming part of Israel, but not the whole of Area C. The map, labeled “Deal of the Century” showed the West Bank in black, with white spots representing Israeli settlements and white lines representing roads connecting them.

“Without Yamina in the government, a Palestinian state will be established,” Shaked warned. “The prime minister didn’t show this map in his press conference [in which he promised to annex

the Jordan Valley, but] this is what he means.”

The map shows “most of the territory of Judea and Samaria being transferred to the Palestinian Authority to establish a Palestinian state,” Shaked warned in an interview with Ynet.

The Trump administration denied that the map was part of its peace plan. A senior US official told The Jerusalem Post that he has “never before seen” the map.

Shaked attacked Netanyahu, accusing him of using a grudge he has against her to divide the Right.

“I ask right-wing voters and religious-Zionists: Why does Netanyahu always try to run over our party?” Shaked said. “Why doesn’t he attack Shas... UTJ... [Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor] Liberman, who moved to the Left? Netanyahu and those around him do not want us. They want to act against the will of the nationalist camp. They are motivated by a personal hatred that I do not understand to this day. I know the country is important to Netanyahu, but there is something beyond that.”

Rather, she said, Yamina has to be big enough to ensure that Netanyahu needs it in his coalition, in order to represent the positions of the ideological Right.

“The Land of Israel is in danger,” she warned. •