|
Trending Topics
|
Netanyahu: Applying Israeli Law in Parts of West Bank Will Not Affect a Single Palestinian Neighborhood
(Times of Israel) Raphael Ahren - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday explained his plan to apply Israeli law in parts of the West Bank in a memo to Knesset members from his Likud party. "There can be no realistic Israeli-Palestinian peace accord in which the Judea and Samaria Jewish communities are evacuated. These are established communities in which hundreds of thousands of Israelis live. Relinquishing these territories would not only constitute a historic injustice; such a move would create an immediate existential threat to the Jewish state since Judea and Samaria border central Israeli cities." The planned measure would replace the current military government "with Israeli law and civil administration in already existing Israeli communities in the territories so that those living there can be treated equally under the law like all Israelis." The move should not be called an annexation, as this word "connotes the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state. Israel is doing no such thing. Israel has valid legal claims to the territories while no other state claims the area." Applying Israeli law would not change the status of the Palestinian Authority "in a single Palestinian neighborhood."