Transportation Minister tells Arutz Sheva relations with Trump Administration greatly improved, Israel coordinating building policy with WH.
Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said in an interview with Arutz Sheva that Israel has already discussions with the Trump Administration regarding construction in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and the announcements of new construction.
“The construction in the settlements is the most urgent issue at the moment,” Minister Katz said. The discussion with the administration is about building within the settlements and construction within the municipal jurisdictions of the settlements. Our position is to allow construction within the jurisdictions of the settlements in the coming years. This will allow us to reach a hundred thousand units, and this will be the ten percent is the scope of the built-up area, which today is [only] two to three percent.”
He said:
“We can build in the coming years without further [outside] interference. Once we define the matter they won’t interfere in our affairs. The settlements will be able to flourish and develop, as well as the construction in Jerusalem.”
Katz added that “the important thing right now is to strengthen Jerusalem and the settlements in Judea and Samaria. A decade ago I initiated a law for Greater Jerusalem to attach the Ma’aleh Adumim, Givat Zeev, Betar Illit and Gush Etzion to Jerusalem, to apply Israeli sovereignty and to attach them to Jerusalem with municipal independence.”
Addressing the meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump this Wednesday, Katz said:
“It is clear that the positions of the new administration have changed [from the previous administration]. First of all, with regard to Iran, the rules of the game have been changed. [President Trump] has also pledged to protect Israel against all [biased] decisions by international organizations. Without the US there is no chance we get that [protection]. The new president also added Iran back to the ‘axis of evil’ and is enabling cooperation [against Iran]. The new administration has also stated that Israel is its primary ally in the region. These three things will allow the construction of a new defense base in the region.”
He rejected the creation of a new Arab state in Judea and Samaria as a threat to the security of the State of Israel. “I reject a Palestinian state in principle as a violation of human rights – and I endorse the position of [former Prime Minister Menachem] Begin, who said that a Palestinian state in the heart of our country would be an existential threat to Israel in the long term. They will never accept our existence, and the stronger they are the more they will threaten the State of Israel.”
“It is clear to everyone today that the issue of a Palestinian state is not on the agenda and is not realistic. Even the leader of the Opposition recently stated that the establishment of a Palestinian state is not feasible. I know about talks with the US and the messages which we pass along to them, and we tell them the same things. There is no chance for them to set up a Palestinian state.”
My comment was only referring to the idea of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. Certainly, I don’t care either if they create a Palestinian state in India or anywhere else where it’s not a threat to Israel. I think from the article it was obvious that the feasibility question was only meant in terms of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria and, in that case, it isn’t feasible.
@ David chase:
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Actually a Palestinian or any other presently pseudo-state is perfectly feasible ….as long as it’s nowhere near Israel and can do it no damage. In that case, I couldn’t care less what they do, or where they go. Perhaps it will be contiguous with an Arab country, and they can both fight and terrorise each other so as to carry on their normal age-old customs.
This is obviously good news but I would prefer not to hear that the main reason against a Palestinian state is simply that it’s just not “feasible” suggesting that it would otherwise be an acceptable idea and not go down in the political record that the land is ours in the first place and that our accepting the idea of negotiating into existence a Palestian state was just Israeli magnimity towards the invented Palestinian people.