Settlements will not be evacuated in any peace plan while I am prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday amid talk that the Trump administration may present its peace plan within weeks.
“I will not let any settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan. This idea of ethnic cleansing… It won’t happen,” Netanyahu said at the Kohelet Forum’s conference on the US decision that settlements are not illegal.
Netanyahu’s remarks come as diplomatic sources say the Trump administration is strongly considering releasing its plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians in the coming weeks, before the March 2 Knesset election.
“There is a window of opportunity; it opened, but it could close,” Netanyahu added, warning of “weak leadership” that will “hit rewind,” in an apparent reference to his election rival, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz.
Netanyahu expounded on Jewish rights to live in Judea and Samaria, pointing to its being anchored in legal documents from the 1920 post-WW1 San Remo Conference and the League of Nations.
“There was no West Bank separate from the rest of the land. It was seen as the heart of the land,” Netanyahu explained. “We never lost our right to live in Judea and Samaria. The only thing we lost temporarily was the ability to exercise that right.”
When Israel returned to the West Bank, “we didn’t return to a foreign land,” he recounted. “That is a distortion of history. Jews lived in Jerusalem and Hebron for thousands of years, consecutively.”
The development of settlements benefited Jews and Arabs, Netanyahu added.
“They don’t have an economy without it. I say it sadly, but that’s the truth.”
Netanyahu thanked US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for the declaration that settlements are not illegal, saying that they stood up for “justice and the truth.”
“The Pompeo declaration about the status of the towns [in Judea and Samaria] establishes the truth that we are not strangers in our own land,” he stated. “In a clearly defensive war, we returned… to the land where our forefathers put down roots thousands of years ago.”
The prime minister also argued that the declaration is the appropriate response to the International Criminal Court’s plan to examine whether it can probe Israel for war crimes.
“That will not deter us at all,” he said. “Unlike what some in Europe who think that the Pompeo Declaration distances peace, I think it will promote peace – because peace must be based on truth, not lies. “Settlements are not the root of the conflict,” Netanyahu said. “We are standing with justice and the truth. It is a great struggle.”
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said regarding the legality of settlements that, “the name Judea says it all: It is the Biblical heartland of Israel.”
“You don’t need a Ph.D. or a law degree to know who has a good claim to this land,” Friedman said. “The answer, with all due respect to the scholars, is just obvious. Because it’s so obvious – because the right of Israel to settle in Judea and Samaria is so obvious – the goalposts started to move.”
The goalposts were moved so far out of place, they weren’t even on the field, the ambassador quipped.
Friedman pointed out that the “Pompeo Doctrine doesn’t resolve the conflict over Judea and Samaria, but it does finally move the goalposts back onto the field.”
This does not contradict the Palestinians’ right to “live in dignity, peace, independence, pride and opportunity,” he clarified, “but the Pompeo Doctrine says that Jews have the right to live in Judea and Samaria.”
Friedman also remarked on the US killing of Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and the subsequent missile attacks by Iran in Iraq, saying that “initial assessments are positive and we pray those reports are true.”
“We pray to God that we will prevail overwhelmingly and… defeat the threats of our time and bring about a more just and more peaceful world,” he said.
Netanyahu said Soleimani “was responsible for the death of countless innocent people. He destabilized many countries. For decades, he sowed fear and misery and anguish, and he was planning much worse.” As for Iran’s response, Netanyahu warned that “anyone who tries to attack us will suffer the most overwhelming blow.”
“President Trump should be congratulated for acting swiftly, boldly and resolutely,” he said. “What I’ve said openly in the past few days, many leaders in the Middle East are thinking.”
The prime minister added that Israel “stands completely besides the United States.”
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