JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Monday, ahead of today's do-over election, to annex "all the settlements" in the West Bank, including an enclave deep in the heart of the largest Palestinian city.
"I intend to extend sovereignty on all the settlements and the [settlement] blocs," including "sites that have security importance or are important to Israel's heritage," Netanyahu said in an interview with Israeli Army Radio, part of an eleventh-hour media blitz.
Asked if that included the hundreds of Jews who live under heavy military guard amid tens of thousands of Palestinians in the volatile city of Hebron, Netanyahu responded, "of course."
Israelis head to the polls today in an unprecedented repeat vote, the second election this year. Netanyahu failed to cobble together a coalition after April's vote, sparking the dissolution of parliament.
Netanyahu has made a series of ambitious pledges in a bid to whip up support for his Likud party. Many of them are focused on appealing to hard-line Israelis, but he has also promised to annex the Jordan Valley, an area even moderate Israelis view as strategic. However, the Palestinians consider the valley the breadbasket of any future state.
To protest that announcement, the Palestinian Authority held a Cabinet meeting in the Jordan Valley village of Fasayil on Monday, a day after Israel's Cabinet met elsewhere in the valley.
"The Jordan Valley is part of Palestinian lands, and any settlement or annexation is illegal," Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said at the start of the meeting. "We will sue Israel in international courts for exploiting our land and we will continue our struggle against the occupation on the ground and in international forums."
Critics contend that Netanyahu's pledges, if carried out, would enflame the Middle East and eliminate any remaining Palestinian hope of establishing a separate state. His political rivals have dismissed his talk of annexation as an election ploy, noting that he has refrained from annexing any territory during his more than a decade in power.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Sufian al-Qudah condemned Netanyahu's statement, saying such a move would "eliminate the remaining chances for peace" and fuel conflict.
Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war.
Over 2.5 million Palestinians now live in occupied territories, in addition to nearly 700,000 Jewish settlers. Israel already has annexed east Jerusalem in a move that is not internationally recognized. The international community, along with the Palestinians, overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem illegal.
Late Monday, Netanyahu visited Jerusalem's Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can worship, in an appeal to religious nationalist supporters. In a Facebook video, he said the site "gives us the strength to continue and make a glorious country."
Today's vote will largely be a referendum on Netanyahu, who this year surpassed Israel's founding prime minister as the country's longest-serving leader.
He has cast himself as the only candidate capable of facing Israel's myriad challenges. But his opponents say his legal troubles -- including a recommendation by the attorney general to indict him on bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges -- loom too large for him to carry on.
Information for this article was contributed by Mohammed Daraghmeh of The Associated Press.
A Section on 09/17/2019