Minister Shalom in Knesset
Minister Shalom in KnessetIsrael news photo (Flash 90)

In a jab at Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Deputy PM Silvan Shalom says, “It is our right and obligation to settle the land and enable natural growth in Judea and Samaria.”

Shalom, who has challenged Netanyahu for Likud Party chairmanship in the past and is expected to do so again, continues to make statements in favor of the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria and against Netanyahu’s apparent intent to suspend it.  Earlier this week, Shalom told a gathering of supporters, “The Likud has a very clear stance, supported by the vast majority of its members, who I believe will not allow any process that means the suffocation the settlement enterprise.”

Shalom called the Likud party gathering in honor of the upcoming new Jewish year of 5770, and among the participants were Minister Michael Eitan, Deputy Ministers Leah Ness and Ayoub Kara, Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin, MKs Hotobeli, Danon, Pinian, Regev, and Levine, and mayors from around the country.

“I believe that natural growth and development [meaning permission to build homes and other buildings to enable natural growth of the communities – ed.] is something very basic,” Shalom said, “and something that was agreed upon with previous U.S. administrations. We will certainly never allow this not to happen.”

Shalom sent greetings to the Shomron town of Eli this week, congratulating it on its 25th birthday commemorations. “It is our right and obligation to settle the Land and enable natural growth in Judea and Samaria,” he wrote.

“The town of Eli symbolizes the links between religious-Zionism and the nation and State of Israel,” Shalom added. “The people you are raising and educating are those who will pave the way that will lead us to new horizons, and they are those who will build, preserve and develop this Land.”

Shalom also attacked Netanyahu’s negotiating tactics – revealing, in the process, that he is not as absolutely opposed to a settlement freeze as one might think: “It is not right to discuss a freeze simply so as to enable a meeting with Abu Mazen [PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas]. If we negotiate now about a PA state and about a freeze, what will we talk about during the negotiations?... What will we say after the freeze? It will lead to an inevitable clash.”

Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, who has also made statements against the intended construction freeze of late, will take part in the Eli birthday celebrations.