Settlers accuse Netanyahu of deceiving them on annexation of occupied territory
Sahel, would remain in place “for the restoration of stability”.
There was no word on the future of the now former president Keita.
The news of Keita’s departure was met with jubilation by anti-government demonstrators in the capital, Bamako, and alarm by former colonial ruler France, and other allies and foreign nations.
The UN Security Council scheduled a closed meeting yesterday afternoon to discuss the unfolding situation in Mali, where the UN has a 15 600-strong peacekeeping mission.
The West African regional bloc Ecowas said it was sending a highlevel delegation to “ensure immediate return to constitutional order.”
Ecowas previously sent mediators to try to negotiate a unity government, but those talks fell apart when it became clear that the protesters would not accept less than Keita’s resignation.
The bloc condemned the overthrow of Keita, denied “any kind of legitimacy to the putschists”, and demanded sanctions against those who staged the coup and their partners and collaborators.
In its statement, Ecowas said it would stop all economic, trade and financial flows and transactions between Ecowas states and Mali.
French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the coup, and spoke by telephone with Keita and the leaders of Niger, Ivory Coast and Senegal as it was unfolding.
Macron pledged full support to the Ecowas mediation effort, but his office said he would not comment further until after the UN Security Council meeting late yesterday.
ISRAEL’S settler leaders say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defrauded them of their long-held dream of annexing the occupied West Bank as part of the country’s normalisation deal with the United Arab Emirates.
Their anger could be a problem for right-wing Netanyahu, whom they accuse of repeatedly floating the idea of annexation only to cave in to international pressure when the terms of the UAE deal required him to walk back his promises.
“He deceived us, defrauded us, duped us,” said David Elhayani, head of the Yesha Council, the settlers’ main umbrella organisation.
“It’s a major disappointment. “It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, a golden opportunity that the prime minister missed because he lacked the courage,” said Elhayani. “He’s lost it. He needs to go.” Israel’s West Bank settlements were built by successive governments on land captured in a 1967 war.
Around 450 000 Jewish settlers now live among three million Palestinians in the West Bank, with a further 200 000 settlers in East Jerusalem.
Most countries view the settlements as illegal, a view that Israel and the US dispute. When Netanyahu promised during recent elections to apply Israeli sovereignty to areas of the West Bank, including Jewish settlements, he said he first needed a green light from Washington.
That green light appeared to have been given by President Donald Trump’s Mid East plan released in January, which envisaged Israel applying sovereignty – de facto annexation – to its 120 settlements in almost a third of the West Bank.
But when Trump announced the UAE deal this month, he said annexation was now “off the table”.
Polls have shown wide support in Israel for the UAE deal but the ideological settler leadership has significant political clout, and has long been a bastion of Netanyahu’s support.
Aware that he might lose their backing to parties even more hawkish than his own, Netanyahu sought to keep settler hopes alive.
“Sovereignty is not off the agenda… we will apply sovereignty,” he said, adding that the White House had merely asked for a suspension.
But many settler leaders unconvinced.
Bezalel Smotrich, a settler with the Yemina party, said Netanyahu “has been deceiving right-wing voters for many years with great success”. |
are