Israel: New right-wing government announces top priority is Jewish settlement expansion in West Bank

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – In a move that will be widely condemned, Israel’s new right-wing coalition government announced Wednesday that its top priority is to expand Jewish settlements in the disputed areas of the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem, DW reports.

Taken over by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War, proprietorship and settlement of the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem remain the subject of intense and violent dispute in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hundreds of thousands of Jews already live in settler communities in these areas, in defiance of international opinion that the settlements are illegal while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains unresolved.

In a statement Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party announced: “The government will advance and develop settlement in all parts of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev Desert, the Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria [West Bank],” DW reports.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, head of the far-right Religious Zionism party, will manage the planned expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Smotrich said in a recent statement that the expansion “doesn’t entail changing [the settlements’] political or legal status.”

International condemnation of Israel’s announcement has already begun, with Germany’s government stating that “the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and in east Jerusalem is increasingly jeopardizing the territorial basis for a future Palestinian state,” DW reports. In a separate statement, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the Associated Press there is no prospect for “peace, security or stability in the region” without a negotiated two-state solution.

Lift this up in Prayer

17

people are currently praying.

Latest Worthy News

Fair Use Notice:This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Books by George Whitten

The Eternal Kingdom Revealed https://eternalkingdomrevealed.com

The Eternal Kingdom Revealed traces the Kingdom of God as the central story of Scripture, from before creation to the restoration of all things.

Buy on Amazon

Identity in Messiah Revealed https://identityinmessiah.com

A devotional journey calling believers out of self-doubt and into confident, Kingdom-rooted identity in the Messiah.

Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.