Netanyahu says he’s talking with Trump about annexing areas of Judea and Samaria

Netanyahu says he’s been discussing Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria with the White House for quite some time.

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

At a Likud faction meeting on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his colleagues that he is in close contact with the Trump administration regarding the possibility of applying Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria.

This follows hard on the heels of Sunday’s meeting of coalition heads in which it was decided to postpone an upcoming vote at the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on an annexation bill sponsored by Likud Member of Knesset Yoav Kisch. The official reason given for the delay was the aftermath of the Israel Air Force’s incursion into Syria after an Iranian drone, launched from Syria, violated Israeli airspace over the weekend and was destroyed.

However, as Netanyahu has said many times before in connection with proactive moves regarding Judea and Samaria, it is of utmost important to the prime minister to coordinate such decisions with the Americans.

“I’m guided by two principles in this issue,” he said. “Optimal coordination with the Americans, whose relationship with us is a strategic asset for Israel and the settlement movement, and the fact that it must be a government initiative rather than a private one, because it would be a historic move.”

The proposed bill is a copy of the resolution on sovereignty that recently passed in the Likud Central Committee by a unanimous vote.

“It’s time to put the Likud Central Committee’s resolution into practice and begin applying sovereignty over the settlement areas in Judea and Samaria,” Kisch said. “There will be no better historic opportunity to do this.”

Judea and SamariaSettlementsTrump Middle EastUS-Israel relations