Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of Jewish settlements in the West Bank district of Samaria, declared that the Jewish state will never again uproot any of its settlements, which Netanyahu emphasized are part of the Land of Israel, the ancient homeland of the Jewish people. Netanyahu said, “This is our ancestor’s inheritance, this is our country. We came back here in order to stay here forever. There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel. Settlements will not be uprooted. By the way it was proven that it does not help achieve peace, we uprooted settlement, what did we received in return? we received missiles. It will not happen anymore.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu went on to explain that, other than the right the Jewish people have on the land, uprooting settlements does not help promote peace. On the contrary, Netanyahu stressed that if Israel would relinquish the hilltops of the disputed territories, radical Islamic forces would aim to control the territory, which overlook the most crowded metropolitan areas of Israel. “I tell them to imagine that on those hilltops that overlook the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, imagen that radical Islamic forces were here. That would have endangered us, but that would have endangered you as well, all of our neighbors and the entire region, in fact the entire Middle East because out of seeds like these grows evil. In light of all that is happening around us in the Middle East we can imagine the consequences, but first of all regarding us, on road 6 on the international airport Ben Gurion, and that is why we do not back down, we do not bend our head, we do not fold back. We are keeping Samaria (West Bank),” Netanyahu stressed.
The comments by Prime Minister Netanyahu came just four days after he met with a senior US delegation to the Middle East, including President Trump’s senior advisor Jared Kushner, the President’s envoy to the region Jason Greenblatt and Deputy National Security Advisor Dina Powell; who concluded meetings with regional leaders in an effort to re-start the long-stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
A senior Israeli official familiar with the meetings Netanyahu held with the American delegation told TV7 that Jerusalem emphasized its position to the Americans, in which peace and security must go hand-in-hand for a viable solution to persist. The official explained that even though a peace agreement was a true aspiration of the Jewish state, valid security concerns were paramount to bringing about an aspired solution to the conflict – especially when Islamic radicals continue to destabilize the entire Middle East, including parts of the Palestinian territories. The official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the topic, pointed to a significant gap of both trust and insight between the Palestinian and Israeli leaderships.