Prominent settler leaders lambaste Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with one accusing him of adopting the “rhetoric of the extreme left.”
The remark comes in reaction to Netanyahu dismissing right-wing criticism of the normalization deal with the UAE and the shelving of plans to annex parts of the West Bank.
“The same people who now tell me to apply sovereignty [in the West Bank] told me several months ago that we must not apply sovereignty because it will lead to a Palestinian state,” the premier told Army Radio. “This is not serious.”
Samaria Regional Council leader Yossi Dagan at a protest tent of settler leaders outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, February 4, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Those comments infuriate Yossi Dagan, the head of the Samaria Regional Council.
In a statement, Dagan says that Netanyahu “has failed embarrassingly to fulfill his central promise in three election cycles that gave him the victory.”
Now, he adds, the premier “is adding insult to injury and adopting the rhetoric of the extreme left by blaming the settler movement for everything.”
“Netanyahu used the settler leaders and then abandoned us,” Dagan charges. “The prime minister deceived us and deceived the entire Israeli public.”
Yisrael Gantz, head of the Binyamin Regional Council, accuses Netanyahu of “misleading the public” and says the premier had promised “sovereignty without a Palestinian state.”
“If your intention had been to promote annexation with a Palestinian state, it is good that you shelved it and it is good that we fought it, but it is a shame that you didn’t inform the Israeli public,” Gantz says. “Don’t try to cast us now as extremists.”
Binyamin Regional Council chairman Yisrael Gantz (L) gives an award to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at an inaugural ceremony of a new interchange at the central West Bank settlement of Adam on December 11, 2018. (Yossi Zamir)
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