There is no chance Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will annex settlements without the United Right, its leader Ayelet Shaked told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
Speaking in an interview to be published in full over the weekend, Shaked said she would not trust Netanyahu’s remarks before the last election when he said he would annex Area C settlements in the next government.
“Without a big, strong United Right, there is no chance that it will happen,” said Shaked. “The only ones who will push it are us.”
The policy of Shaked’s New Right Party, a constituent of United Right, is to advance the annexation of Area C of the West Bank and apply Israeli law and sovereignty over the Israeli settlements in the territory.
Any Palestinians in Area C, which Shaked estimates number some 100,000, would be given full citizenship in Israel.
Just days before the April election, Netanyahu promised for the first time that he would work towards annexing the city of Ma’aleh Adumim and other settlements.
During the interview, the former justice minister said that Netanyahu and the Likud were happy with the status quo on many issues, including the justice system and the settlements.
“There are many things that can be done and the Likud doesn’t do them… We aren’t building enough in Jerusalem – for instance, in Givat Hamatos, where tens of thousands of housing units could be built, but nothing goes forward – and that gives a potential for dividing Jerusalem in the future,” she explained.
Speaking on Monday on KAN Radio, Shaked said she disagreed with her fellow United Right leader Rabbi Rafi Peretz who said in a recent interview that he supported annexing the entire West Bank without giving the Palestinians there the right to vote in Israel.
“We have no intention of annexing two million Palestinians, but we do want to apply Israeli law on territory where the decisive majority of its residents are Israeli citizens,” she said.