Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his final pre-election cabinet meeting on Sunday in the Jordan Valley on Sunday, reiterating his pledge to annex the area.
During the special cabinet meeting, the cabinet also voted to approve a new settlement in the area. The settlement, Mevo'ot Yericho, has previously been an illegal outpost, but now it is set to get official recognition.
Netanyahu further said that it was clear that the US peace plan was going to be released just days after the election, even before a new coalition is formed and a new government is sworn in. He said Israeli Ambassador to the United States had a similar assessment, and therefore it was imperative to green light the new settlement.
The meeting, along with the new pledges, came despite an international outcry over Netanyahu's promise to annex the West Bank's Jordan Valley. Annexing the area, considered to be the heartland of any future Palestinian state, would all but extinguish any remaining Palestinian hopes for independence.
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Netanyahu has staged a flurry of media appearances to beseech supporters to vote in large numbers to stave off the prospect of a left-wing government he says will endanger the country's security.
A centerpiece of his late-hour agenda has been the pledge to extend Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and to annex Jewish settlements, something Netanyahu refrained from doing during his decade-plus in power.
Seated in a makeshift tent and flanked by his ministers against a backdrop of Israeli flags, Netanyahu said at the cabinet meeting that he was proud to establish what he expects to be the country's future eastern border and officially incorporate its settlements into Israel.
"It's not just the eastern gate of Israel, it is the defensive wall from the east, because the Jordan Valley, together with the territories that will be part of Israel, guarantees that the military will be here forever," he said. "Instead of having a country that is only a few kilometers wide, it is a country with strategic depth and strategic height."
His Likud party is locked in a dead heat in the polls with the centrist Blue and White alliance and re-election seems to be his best shot at avoiding having to face the pending corruption charges against him in a courtroom.
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