Israeli minister: We’ll be in the West Bank for ‘5,000 years’

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked vowed Wednesday that Israel would remain in the occupied West Bank for “5,000 years”, speaking during a Knesset debate on applying Israeli legislation to settlers.

The Knesset House Committee decided that from now on, “legislative committees will be instructed to discuss each new bill’s application to the West Bank”. Israeli laws currently normally require a military order to apply in the West Bank, since the region is governed by the army.

“We’re not in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] in order to disappear one day”, Shaked said. “We’re here for 50 years already, and we will be here for another 5,000 years. Our policy is clear: Settlement in the entire Land of Israel and normalization of life in Judea and Samaria”.

Shaked’s coalition colleague, Tourism Minster Yariv Levin, expressed his support for the annexation of the occupied West Bank, stating that “the right thing to do is to apply our sovereignty on all parts of the Land of Israel, and I`m certain that this will be done soon”.

Read: Who is responsible for annexing the West Bank to Israel?

Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg said the Knesset was legislating for an apartheid situation.

“There is a territory that is outside of Israel’s borders, and what you’re suggesting is to have two parallel legal systems in the same land, where the only measure that determines which system applies to whom is a person’s race. This has a name, and you know what it is,” she said.