West Bank settlers optimistic over new government
After squeezing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in coalition negotiations, the pro-settler Jewish Home party has gained control over several powerful government ministries — putting it in position to push forward with an agenda that includes money for settlement construction and an assault on a judiciary it believes to be too liberal.
Some mystery shrouds the question of what the settlers might have been promised.
But among the settlers themselves, there is widespread expectation that the government will remove restraints on construction and push for aggressive expansion, said Yigal Dilmoni, the spokesman for the Yesha Council, an umbrella settler lobby.
“There is a pretty permanent reality in Judea and Samaria, one that is almost irreversible,” he said, referring to the West Bank by the biblical names favored by nationalist Israelis. “We are optimistic but not power drunk. … We are not looking to fight, but the world cannot dictate something that Israeli democracy voted against.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/west-bank-settlers-optimistic-over-new-government/
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