PM: Annexation only after elections
EU warns Israel against sovereignty • Kushner to address UNSC
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to backtrack from plans to annex West Bank settlements this week when he told the crowd at a Likud rally in Beit Shemesh on Tuesday night he would exercise sovereignty over all settlements only after the March 2 election.
“When we win, we will continue making history,” Netanyahu said. “When we win, we will extend sovereignty over all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.”
He warned that the historic opportunity to annex West Bank settlements with the support of the US would only occur if he received enough votes to form a right-wing government.
Netanyahu contrasted himself with his opponent, Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz, who said he would implement US President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan only with international approval.
The Yesha Council and the right-wing Yamina Party have pressured Netanyahu to annex the settlements immediately, warning it would harm him in the polls if he did not. The Yesha Council opened a protest tent in Jerusalem to underscore that point.
Netanyahu had said he would bring the matter to a cabinet vote prior to the
March 2 election. He then halted the process in its tracks after the White House asked him to wait several months.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu clarified that he did not plan to oppose the White House. He spoke of Trump’s peace plan (unveiled last week) as a historic achievement, noting that no other prime minister had managed to gain so many concessions from the US when it came to Israel’s sovereign border.
The opportunity to expand Israel’s borders would only materialize if he received the maximum number of votes, he said.
Netanyahu warned that Gantz would waste the opportunity because he would only annex settlements if the United Nations and the European Union approved, as well as the Joint List, whose support Gantz could need to build a
governing coalition.
“So Gantz would not really implement the plan, and if it was dependent on him, this historic opportunity, the likes of which we have not seen since our independence in 1948, would not be carried out,” Netanyahu said.
“But we in Likud will not let this enormous opportunity fall through our hands. We brought it [to fruition], and we are here to implement it,” he said.
“We are making peace not out of weakness but out of strength,” Netanyahu told the crowd, sounding like his 1996 election slogan, “making peace secure.”
He recounted his success in bringing home Naama Issachar from Moscow and his meeting with the leader of Sudan and promised the crowd “more surprises.” He warned that if he did not win, the Left would come to power and implement its former policies.
At a rally in Petah Tikva later that night he spoke of the possibility of new Israeli flight paths over Sudan.
In a reference to former US president Barack Obama, Netanyahu said he thwarted disaster doing those years, when “I stopped Israel withdrawing to pre-1967 lines and dividing Jerusalem.”
“What is really hard is standing up to an American president for eight years,” but “what is really easy is voting Likud,” Netanyahu said.
The EU on Tuesday warned Israel against annexing West Bank settlements.
“We are especially concerned by statements on the prospect of annexation of the Jordan Valley and other parts of the West Bank,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement issued by his office.
“In line with international law and relevant UN Security Council resolutions, the EU does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the territories occupied since 1967,” he said.
“Steps towards annexation, if implemented, could not pass unchallenged,” Borrell said. He spoke after holding meetings in Iran and Jordan.
KAN News reported that Borrell had hoped to issued a stiffer notice with the agreement of all 27-member states, but the move was thwarted by a number of states friendlier to Israel, which objected to the text.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry tweeted: “The fact that the High [Representative] of the EU, Josep Borrell, chose to use threatening language towards Israel, so shortly after he assumed office [and] only hours after his meetings in Iran, is regrettable [and], to say the least, odd.
“Pursuing such policies [and] conduct is the best way to ensure that the EU’s role in any process will be minimized,” the Foreign Ministry said.
The US has already said it recognizes the Israel’s right to extend its sovereignty over the West Bank settlements, all of which are located in Area C.
Trump clarified his position on settlements when he unveiled the diplomatic portion of his peace plan, dubbed the “Deal of the Century,” at the White House last week.
The plan was not based on the pre-1967 lines and fell outside the parameters of past proposals on some key points. It offered Israel 30% of the West Bank and allowed for the application of sovereignty over that 30% in the first stages of the process.
Borrell dismissed this plan on Tuesday.
“The EU recalls its commitment to a negotiated two-state solution, based on 1967 lines, with equivalent land swaps, as may be agreed between the parties – with the State of Israel and an independent, democratic, contiguous, sovereign and viable State of Palestine, living side by side in peace, security and mutual recognition – as set out in the Council Conclusions of July 2014,” he said. “The US initiative, as presented on 28 January, departs from these internationally agreed parameters.”
The EU has long supported a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 lines, with east Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.
Borrell issued his statements two days before US special envoy Jared Kushner, the architect of the Trump administration’s peace process, is expected to brief the UN Security Council.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to brief the Security Council on February 11, and he may attempt to bring a resolution against the plan to a vote. The US, as one of the five Security Council member states with veto power, is expected to veto any such resolution. •