Settlers accuse Netanyahu of misleading right on annexation
Settler leaders and Yamina are campaigning against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s annexation plan, suspecting the initiative will lead to Palestinian statehood.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat in his chambers with the settler leaders for more than two hours on June 2. The reason? He needs to smooth the political right’s ruffled feathers regarding his intentions to promote annexation as soon as the beginning of July.
Senior figures among the settlers and the political right have expressed reservations and even objections to Netanyahu’s annexation plan. They argue that the annexation he is promoting as a historic step is really a code name for the establishment of a Palestinian state that Netanyahu is also endorsing as part of the US peace plan.
Just a day earlier, the leaders of the settlers met with seniors of the Yamina Party. At the end of that meeting, chairman Naftali Bennett was heard accusing Netanyahu of intentionally hiding the maps and details of the annexation plan. In Bennett’s words, “We do not yet know the details of the plan and the map. Is it sovereignty or Palestine?”
Another Yamina senior who has been giving endless interviews recently is former Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich. He, too, has been criticizing Netanyahu harshly. In a June 2 interview with Ynet, Smotrich said, “Netanyahu always talks about partitioning the country. To his credit, he does not lie. He sets conditions, mainly security ones; he talks about a demilitarized Palestinian state, about IDF control over the entire territory. But he does not think that we have the right, — whether ‘right’ appears between quotation marks or not — to rule over a foreign nation and that we have no solution. Therefore, ultimately, the land must be split up.”
