By Ariel Kahana, Israel Hayom—
Right-wing lawmakers and officials expressed outrage Wednesday over the Biden administration’s criticism of Israel’s planned settlement construction in Judea and Samaria.
On Tuesday, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said Washington was “deeply concerned about the Israeli government’s plan to advance thousands of settlement units tomorrow, Wednesday, many of them deep in the West Bank.” He also said that Israel’s plans to retroactively “illegal outposts” were “unacceptable.”
Yossi Dagan, head of the Shomron Regional Council, spoke out harshly against the department and called on Prime Minister Naftali Bennett “and the Foreign Ministry to put the State Department spokesman and the US charge d’affaires in their place and make it clear to them that the British Mandate and Ottoman rule have long ended.”
He added that Israel had to deal with opposition from Washington in the past and that this time “it is not Biden. It is Bennett. Half a million Israelis are not second-class citizens.” Continue Reading…
