Likud Convenes to Urge Annexation of West Bank

31 Dec

11:29 PM

The ruling Israeli Likud party is to convene, on Sunday, to vote on urging party leaders to formally annex the occupied West Bank to Israel, and allow unlimited construction in illegal Jewish settlements.

A number of party heavyweights have released statements or videos expressing support for the vote, which will take place at the Avenue Conference Centre, near Ben Gurion Airport, Israeli newspaper Times of Israel said.

They include Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Environmental Protection Minister Ze’ev Elkin and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz.

The keynote address, at the confab, was reportedly given to longtime Netanyahu opponent and former cabinet minister Gideon Sa’ar, also a backer of the resolution.

Likud activists in the illegal settlements of the occupied West Bank, who gathered over 900 signatures of Central Committee members, called for allowing the resolution to be presented without requiring the consent of party leaders.

The resolution reads: “Fifty years after the liberation of Judea and Samaria [occupied West Bank], and with them Jerusalem, our eternal capital, the Likud Central Committee calls on Likud’s elected leaders to work to allow unhindered construction and to extend Israeli law and sovereignty in all the areas of liberated settlement in Judea and Samaria.”

Extending Israeli law and sovereignty means considering the occupied Palestinian lands as part of Israel, which was built on 78 per cent of Palestine’s area occupied in 1948.

~Times of Israel/Days of Palestine