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Ministers to topple government if Israel annexes settlements

June 9, 2014 at 2:50 pm

Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni yesterday threatened to quit the government if any of the Israeli settlements built on the occupied Palestinian territories was annexed to Israel.

Lapid also called for the identification of the future borders of Israel in order to know how to deal with the Palestinians in future talks. He blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the failure of the peace process with the Palestinians.

“If there is any effort to annex even one settlement unilaterally, Yesh Atid will not just leave the government, it will bring it down,” Lapid said.

Calling for Israel to stop building more settlements, he said: “There is no reason to continue building settlements in areas that will not remain part of Israel in any future agreement, or to invest billions in infrastructure that, at the end of the day, will be given as a present to the Palestinians.”

The finance minister called for Israel’s borders to be outlined and blamed the continuous building of settlements for the delay in carrying this out. “The reasons these maps have not been drawn until now is that they embody the need to freeze construction outside the settlement blocs,” Lapid said.

Lapid only opposes settlements which “cause international damage that is only getting worse, and economic damage that every Israeli citizen feels in his pocket,” and not the settlements of Gush Etzion or Gilo in occupied Jerusalem.