Netanyahu pledges annexation, plans to open school year in a settlement
“The application of sovereignty is in the Trump [peace plan],” Netanyahu said.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFSigns abour annexation with pictures of US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are displayed in Israel(photo credit: COURTESY YESHA COUNCIL)Annexation of portions of the West Bank is still on the table, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday. To underscore that message, he is scheduled to open the school year Tuesday at a school in the Mevo Horon settlement in the Binyamin region of Judea and Samaria.“The application of sovereignty is in the Trump [peace plan],” Netanyahu said.He spoke at a press conference in Jerusalem that took place as a high-level Israel delegation was in the United Arab Emirates to cement details for the upcoming agreement between the two countries.Israel agreed to suspend annexation as a prerequisite for the deal. Normalization had replaced annexation, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said last week in Berlin.But on Sunday and Monday, Netanyahu spoke about eventual sovereignty.Trump’s peace plan “says that settlements won’t be uprooted, and there won’t be an uprooting of citizens,” he said. “There is no such thing. Israelis will stay where they are. In this plan, there are wide swaths of territory with Israelis and also for security that will be under Israeli sovereignty.”This subject has not gone away, Netanyahu said.“It is not as if you are going to create a Palestinian state based on past understandings where the settlements are dismantled and there is a return to the ’67 lines... and where Jerusalem is divided,” he said.Regarding what happens to the possibility of applying sovereignty independently if the Palestinians do not come to the table, Netanyahu said: “I have not taken this off of the agenda. I suggest that you wait patiently. I think that everyone understands that historic things are happening here.”He made similar comments on Sunday during a joint press conference with US Special Adviser Jared Kushner and US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien.
