Netanyahu pledges to legalize West Bank settler outposts if re-elected

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to authorize illegal West Bank setter outposts should the results of the March 23 election allow him to create a right-wing government.”I swear to you if I create a strong right-wing government without a rotation, I will take care of the settlements and the authorization of the young settlements [outposts],” Netanyahu said during a visit to the Givat Ronen outpost in Binyamin region of the West Bank.The event was closed to the media and his remarks were publicized by the Young Settlements Forum, whose representatives met with him at the outpost.The outpost visit is part of a larger trip, that marks the first time Netanyahu has campaigned in the settlements during this fourth election cycle.Netanyahu had already pledged to support the authorization of the outposts prior to the fall of the government.At the time he had supported an initiative for government ministers to issue a declaration of intent to legalize the outposts, but Alternate Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benny Gantz had kept the issue off the government’s agenda.The Young Settlements Forum and the Yesha Council had manned a protest tent outside Netanyahu’s office in the final weeks of the Trump Administration, in hopes of ensuring passage of the initiative. Some of the settlers even held a hunger strike.

Should Netanyahu make good on his pledge to authorize the outposts, he would immediately generate friction with the Biden Administration, which is opposed to such a move.At issue are some 165 illegal West Bank outposts, off which some 100 were built from 1991-2005 and another 65 that were constructed in the last eight years during Netanyahu’s tenure.But some 41 of the new outposts are herding encampments, designed to claim a foothold on land, through agriculture and animal grazing. While the remainder of the outposts were designed to eventually become fledgling new communities. According to the left-wing group Peace Now, some 15 West Bank outposts have been legalized as new neighborhoods of existing settlements, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been in office.Another ten are in the process of legalization. It was unclear how many outposts would have been included had the government issued a deceleration, but the Young Settlements Forum has focused on 70 outposts that it wants to see legalized either as new neighborhoods of existing settlements or as new settlements.All of Netanyahu’s rivals on the Right have pledge their support of the outposts, including party leaders Gideon Sa’ar of New Hope, Naftali Bennett of Yamina and Bezalel Smotrich of Religious Zionists.Netanyahu’s rivals all voted in favor of the legalization of the outposts when during a preliminary Knesset vote on the matter just before the government fell. Netanyahu was absent from the Knesset when the vote took place. Source