From the Liveblog of
Sunday, July 7, 2024
Far-right minister: Past few months have been ‘like a time of miracles’ for settlement movement
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock says that the last several months have been “like a time of miracles” for the settlement movement, after the government recognized eight illegal West Bank outposts within a week.
In a video published by Army Radio, Strock, a longtime settlements activist, can be heard telling residents of the newly recognized Givat Hanan outpost that she feels like someone stuck at an intersection when “a green light” goes on.
“It is not clear that the government will last,” she warns, adding that for as long as the government remains in power “we want to do as much as possible.”
Strock’s comments come after Israel’s recognition of the illegal outposts of Mahane Gadi, Givat Hanan and Kedem Arava on Thursday, a week after the cabinet voted to legalize five other West Bank outposts.
On Wednesday, Israel announced its largest appropriation of land in the West Bank since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, designating 2,965 acres of land as state land.
During a speech in Jerusalem last week, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of Strock’s far-right Religious Zionism party, said that the government’s decision to legalize outposts and impose sanctions on Palestinian Authority leaders was aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, which would pose “an immediate, existential danger to the State of Israel.”
