A day before elections, Netanyahu backs further legalization of West Bank outposts

A day before national elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a cornerstone-laying ceremony for a new neighborhood in a West Bank settlement and says his Likud party supports the legalization of unrecognized outposts.

“We support the regulation of the young settlement movement communities,” Netanyahu said at the ceremony in Revava, employing common terminology used by pro-settler groups for the legalization of outposts. “Why didn’t we pass the entire regulation? Because we were in a rotation [government]. We didn’t have 61 [Knesset seats]. Now we can change that.”

Netanyahu has in the past made similar pre-election promises that weren’t kept. Last year he planned to annex settlements and some 30% of the West Bank, but he shelved that plan in favor of signing four normalization agreements with Arab countries.

A few weeks ago, he tried to legalize several outposts but was thwarted by Defense Minister Benny Gantz.