Netanyahu said to backtrack on pledge for new Amona settlement
Amid Trump request to ‘hold back’ on construction, Netanyahu reported to tell cabinet that government may renege on promise to evicted families; ministers mum
Raoul Wootliff is a former Times of Israel political correspondent and Daily Briefing podcast producer.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told members of his security cabinet on Sunday that the government may have to renege on a pledge to set up a new settlement in the West Bank as compensation to residents of the illegal outpost of Amona, which was evacuated earlier this month according to a court order, following a request by US President Donald Trump last week to “hold back” on settlement construction.
Netanyahu is said to have told ministers that while he will not impose a settlement freeze, there is likely to be a slowdown in West Bank construction, according to reports on Channel 2 and by the Haaretz daily.
Ministers declined to comment on the reports Sunday night.
Trump told Netanyahu during a joint press conference in Washington last week to “hold back on settlements for a little bit,” a request that, according to the prime minister, makes it difficult to push ahead with the plan to establish the new settlement, Channel 2 and Haaretz reported Netanyahu as saying.
Amona is important, and a solution should be found, but there are more pressing issues, he is reported to have told his ministers, citing the need to work with the Trump administration to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“With all due respect to Amona, we must now focus on coordinationg with Trump on Iran. It’s a top priority. I don’t care how many tweets people here write,” he said according to Haaretz, which cited two officials with knowledge of the content of the meeting. Netanyahu was likely referring to a number of tweets since last week by members of the pro-settler Jewish Home party.
While the prime minister’s comments are likely to have ruffled the feathers of many in the hawkish cabinet, including Jewish Home lawmakers, ministers remained largely silent on the issue Sunday.
Jewish Home chair Naftali Bennett declined to comment on the topic, refusing to confirm or deny the reports. Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, also of the Jewish Home, said he had not be party to any discussions on Amona but believed the issue may have been brought up at the security cabinet or the Likud ministers forum.
“The minister had no say whatsoever in the decision,” a spokesman for Ariel told the Times of Israel, saying that the minister made his views on the issue clear in a tweet posted early Sunday afternoon.
“Promises need to be kept and I cannot see how the coalition can continue to work properly without fulfilling its obligation to the residents of Amona and to the citizens of Israel to establish a new settlement for them,” Ariel’s wrote.
Likud ministers who serve on the security cabinet also declined to comment. A spokesperson for Environmental Affairs Minister Ze’ev Elkin said he does not talk publicly about the meetings and a representative for Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said he was not aware of the issue. Several other ministers ignored requests for comment.
The Prime Minister’s Office also did not respond to a Times of Israel request for comment.
A spokesperson for the Amona evictees said they had not been updated by the government. “As we have said before, we expect the deal to be fulfilled. We are hearing rumors from the media but no one has told us anything,” he said.
Under an agreement signed with the government ahead of the evacuation, the Amona residents were allowed to pick a new site to rebuild their community — a first state-sanctioned new settlement to be built in decades.
Netanyahu had responded to Trump’s request to rein in settlement activity on Wednesday by promising that Israel and the US would try to coordinate their positions on construction in the West Bank, “so that we don’t bump into each other on this every time.”
Last week, the residents of Amona voted to move to the Geulat Tzion unauthorized outpost, located in the Shiloh settlement bloc. While Amona was built on privately owned Palestinian land, Geulat Tzion lies on a state-owned tract.
According to the deal, the new settlement is to be set up within two months.
At the beginning of February, over the course of two days, thousands of police officers streamed to Amona in order to clear out the 42 families and hundreds of protesters who had barricaded themselves inside the homes and a synagogue there, in compliance with a 2014 court decision.
The evacuated residents of Amona were temporarily housed in the nearby Ofra settlement.
Jewish Home party leaders had vowed Friday that Israel will build a new settlement to compensate the evacuated residents of Amona, despite reports then that Netanyahu was having second thoughts.
“Promises need to be kept. The prime minister signed the agreement to establish a new settlement for the residents of Amona,” Naftali Bennett tweeted at the time. “I am sure he will stand by his commitments.”
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, also from the right-wing party, said “the government is obligated to the agreement signed with the Amona residents and there is no intention to break it.”
“A new settlement for the residents of Amona will be established as we promised,” she wrote on Twitter.
