Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Wednesday with some 20 leaders of local authorities in Judea and Samaria to discuss a number of issues affecting Israel's settlements.
The topics addressed included the need to find a legal solution for the thousands of residents of settlements who believed they had built homes legally but, following legal proceedings, were found to be in violation of the law.
Netanyahu used the meeting to send a clear political message: "We are coming up on an election. The upcoming campaign looks like it will be an attempt by the Left to overturn the government, with the help of the media and other power centers. We must win the election. This is a war to defend our home."
The meeting was one in a series of meetings Netanyahu regularly holds with settler leaders. But some two hours before the meeting convened, Shomron Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, Binyamin Regional Council head Yisrael Gantz and head of the Kiryat Arba Local Council Eliyahu Liebman announced that they would be boycotting the meeting.
Dagan, Gantz, and Liebman sent their fellow settlement council heads a letter in which they expressed their disappointment with the government policy that they feel is preventing settlements from expanding in correlation with the expanding settler population.
"We are expected to lie down and be grateful for a few construction plans, some of which are not even new and can in no way be seen as a real breakthrough," the letter said.
At the end of the meeting, acting director general of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria Yigal Dilmoni said, "The prime minister has given instructions to move ahead with the issues on the agenda."
