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Thousands Rally for Annexation, Say Delay Will Cost PM the Election

Settlement leaders warn Netanyahu that failure to act now will damage his chances of winning the upcoming election.

By Aaron Sull, World Israel News

Several thousand demonstrators gathered in Jerusalem outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence on Thursday to protest his reluctance to apply swift sovereignty over settlements in Judea and Samaria.

With the crowd chanting “Am Yisrael Chai ” (The Nation of Israel Lives) and “Sovereignty now,” Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan took aim at Netanyahu for bowing to U.S. pressure to hold off on immediate annexation.

“Did we vote for [U.S. special envoy] Jared Kushner? Did we vote for the State Department? Would England or Italy allow another nation to poke its nose in its business in the same way? We chose you. Mr. Prime Minister, and the ball is in your court here in Jerusalem not in Washington. We are not a banana republic,” Dagan declared.

Yesha Council head and Jordan Valley Regional Council David Elhayani said that failure to act now will damage Netanyahu’s chances of winning the upcoming election.

“I fear that your voters won’t come out to vote. They are sitting at home, waiting. They know that this is a dramatic history moment,” Elhayani said.

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“They love you. They believe in you. They are asking that you stand by your promise to apply sovereignty on the Jordan Valley, the northern Dead Sea and the settlements in Judea and Samaria. They are the ones that can determine if you will achieve the necessary 61 mandates to form a right bloc. Listen to them,” he urged.

Since President Donald Trump’s release of the “Deal of the Century,” leaders and activists representing the settlements in Judea and Samaria have been getting restless for annexation to begin.

Earlier this month activists crisscrossed Judea and Samaria in tractors, waving Israeli flags and banners with the words ,”We make history, we impose sovereignty.”