JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday pledged to annex parts of the occupied West Bank in the coming months, vowing to move ahead with the explosive plan despite a growing chorus of condemnations by key allies.
The Palestinians, with wide international backing, seek the entire West Bank as the heartland of a future independent state. Annexing large chunks of this territory would all but destroy the faint remaining hopes of a two-state solution.
In an apparent reference to the friendly administration of President Donald Trump, Netanyahu said Israel had a “historic opportunity” to redraw the Mideast map that could not be missed. Israeli media quoted him as saying he would act in July.
“This is an opportunity that we will not let pass,” he told members of his conservative Likud party. He added that the “historic opportunity” to annex the West Bank had never before occurred since Israel’s founding in 1948.
The comments threatened to push Israel closer to a confrontation with Arab and European partners, and could deepen what is becoming a growing partisan divide over Israel in Washington.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. It has settled nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers in the territory, but never formally claimed it as an Israeli territory due to stiff international opposition.
But the Trump administration has taken a much softer line toward Israeli settlements than its predecessors. Trump’s Mideast team is dominated by advisers with close ties to the settlements, and his Mideast plan, unveiled in January, envisions leaving some 30% of the territory under permanent Israeli control while giving the Palestinians expanded autonomy in the rest of the area. The Palestinians have rejected the plan, saying it is unfairly biased toward Israel.
With Trump’s re-election prospects uncertain this November, Israeli hard-liners have urged Netanyahu to move ahead with annexation quickly. The Israeli leader’s new coalition deal includes an official clause allowing him to present his annexation plan to the government in July.
Israeli media quoted him as telling Likud members that “we have a target date for July and we don’t intend to change it.” The quote could not immediately be confirmed.
The plan has already exposed a partisan divide in Washington. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee in the US presidential elections, recently said that annexation would “choke off” hopes for a two-state solution. 18 Democratic senators warned in a letter this week that annexation could harm US-Israeli ties.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said annexation would violate international law and vowed to use “all our diplomatic capacities” to stop it.
Closer to home, the Palestinians last week cut off security ties — a valuable tool in a shared struggled against Islamic militants — with Israel to protest the annexation plan.
Saudi Arabia, an influential Arab country that maintains behind-the-scenes relations with Israel, announced its “rejection of the Israeli measures and plans to annex Palestinian lands.”
The Arab League has condemned it as a “war crime,” and both Jordan and Egypt — the only two Arab countries at peace with Israel — have harshly criticized it.
Netanyahu spoke a day after beginning his trial on corruption charges.
The prime minister launched a blistering tirade against the country’s legal system when he arrived at court, accusing police, prosecutors and media of conspiring to oust him. As he spoke, hundreds of supporters cheered outside.
Speaking to Likud on Monday, Netanyahu said he was “very moved” by the support.
Critics have said his attacks on the justice system risk undermining the country’s democratic foundations.
Israeli leader vows to push ahead with annexing West Bank
https://arab.news/mdm7r
Israeli leader vows to push ahead with annexing West Bank
- Netanyahu said Israel had a “historic opportunity” to redraw the Mideast map that could not be missed
- The Palestinians seek the entire West Bank as the heartland of a future independent state
Algeria inaugurates strategic railway to giant Sahara mine
- The mine is expected to produce 4 million tons per year during the initial phase, with production projected to triple to 12 million tons per year by 2030
- The project is financed by the Algerian state and partly built by a Chinese consortium
ALGEIRS: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Sunday inaugurated a nearly 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) desert railway to transport iron ore from a giant mine, a project he called one of the biggest in the country’s history.
The line will bring iron ore from the Gara Djebilet deposit in the south to the city of Bechar located 950 kilometers north, to be taken to a steel production plant near Oran further north.
The project is financed by the Algerian state and partly built by a Chinese consortium.
During the inauguration, Tebboune described it as “one of the largest strategic projects in the history of independent Algeria.”
This project aims to increase Algeria’s iron ore extraction capacity, as the country aspires to become one of Africa’s leading steel producers.
The iron ore deposit is also seen as a key driver of Algeria’s economic diversification as it seeks to reduce its reliance on hydrocarbons, according to experts.
President Tebboune attended an inauguration ceremony in Bechar, welcoming the first passenger train from Tindouf in southern Algeria and sending toward the north a first charge of iron ore, according to footage broadcast on national television.
The mine is expected to produce 4 million tons per year during the initial phase, with production projected to triple to 12 million tons per year by 2030, according to estimates by the state-owned Feraal Group, which manages the site.
It is then expected to reach 50 million tons per year in the long term, it said.
The start of operations at the mine will allow Algeria to drastically reduce its iron ore imports and save $1.2 billion per year, according to Algerian media.
