Gen. Ezer Weizman of Likud, slated to be Israel’s next Defense Minister, said that Israel will annex the West Bank and introduce Israeli law there “immediately” according to an interview published in the weekly magazine Stern. He said that while there would be no Israeli pull-out from any part of the West Bank, the situation in Sinai and on the Golan Heights was “different.”
“There one can talk about border corrections, though obviously only small changes to the present borders and not to those prior to 1967,” the former Israeli Air Force commander was quoted as saying. Asked if this meant full annexation of the West Bank and the application of Israeli law, Weizman replied: “Yes, immediately, I think it would be only fair to extend Israeli law to this territory.” He also said that Israel “must have the right to settle anywhere we want, under one condition–that we don’t take away land from the Arabs. But if we can buy land or if there is vacant land, we should set up Israeli settlements.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
