Tzipi Hotovely
Tzipi HotovelyCredit: David Weil

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) participated in the "Youth of Sovereignty" conference held at Bar-Ilan University on Thursday.

Hotovely referred to the words of US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, according to which Israel has the right to apply sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria. "I promise you that we'll do everything not to miss the historic hour," said the deputy minister.

"Last week, American Ambassador David Friedman said things that were never heard before by an American ambassador. He told The New York Times in an interview: "Yes, there's a chance that Israel will annex part of Judea and Samaria."

"You're probably saying, 'Why say 'part?' We want everything!' But first of all, I want to tell you something about the word 'annexation.' We're present at the 'Youth Sovereignty' conference because the correct terminology is actually 'sovereignty.' We're not annexing the territories of a foreign country, we contain sovereignty over the land of our forefathers that we returned to after 3,000 years."

"It was a difficult week for a lot of people," Hotovely said, referring to the conflict within the national camp. "You heard this one slandering that one, Bennett against Yogev, that one against the other, everyone against everyone. I want to say something here that I'm sure you all identify with - we weren't chosen only for one character or another, we were chosen to lead the way."

"In the past week, no one has been talking about ideology anymore. Only you came to return the ideology to Israeli politics. While we're quarreling with each other, we miss the hour. We're on the eve of elections and there is a real danger of the loss of right-wing rule in Israel. Everything can go down the drain because of internal struggles."

Hotovely called for "raising the banner of unity against divisiveness, for a united leadership of a unified national front in these elections. No to splits, no to sub-groups, no to arguments of who's at the top - simply form a united approach so that we'll have a national leadership headed by Netanyahu and we'll merit to establish a national government that will include sovereignty in Judea and Samaria."