Right-wing groups expressed outrage Wednesday after Defense Minister Benny Gantz compared the Palestinian Authority's perceived takeover of land in Judea and Samaria to Israeli land grabs.
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The written statement by Gantz was issued as an official reply to a parliamentary query submitted by Likud MK Keti Shitrit, requesting clarification of the Defense Ministry's response to the takeover of open spaces in Judea and Samaria.
In his response, the defense minister noted "attempts to trespass and to commandeer land in Judea and Samaria by both Palestinians and Israelis" usually manifested by illegal construction and unauthorized agricultural activity. He also pointed to the renewal of the process of approval of construction permits for the Palestinian sector in Area C as the solution to the problem.
Avichai Boaron, chairman of the right-wing Zion and Jerusalem Forum, lambasted the move.
"The defense establishment led by Benny Gantz turns a blind eye to a ticking bomb. It is similar to assumptions made before the 1973 Yom Kippur War, but this time, the failure of the assumption will end in a densely populated Palestinian state … When we wake up, it will be too late, and no one will be able to turn back the time."
Gantz was also criticized by Regavim, a group dedicated to the protection of Israel's national lands and resources, who said he was "handing Palestinians a state on a silver platter."
"This document indicates that the current defense minister is completely clueless regarding the strategic issues involved. This is nothing less than a revisited 'Yom Kippur War-style' implosion for the Defense Ministry," Regavim Director-General Meir Deutsch said.
"The defense minister has compared a situation described by the Palestinian Authority itself as its primary objective for the past decade – establishing a Palestinian state in Area C – this enormous, organized, systematic program of annexation to illegal construction in the Jewish sector in Judea and Samaria, the sum total of which amounts to some 3000 structures all told, in the entire territory."
Meanwhile, the Palestinian "objective is funded by European support in the hundreds of millions of dollars each year that has enabled the Palestinian Authority to pave dozens of kilometers of roads, put up thousands of electricity poles, build hundreds of public structures, schools ,and religious institutions in illegal outposts, supports agricultural work that has already taken over hundreds of thousands of dunams of Israeli state land, and orchestrate the construction of some 3500 illegal structures each year.
"The defense minister's utter lack of understanding of this matter is an existential threat to the State of Israel," Deutsch said.
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