The Israeli Knesset voted 71-13 yesterday in favor of a nonbinding resolution calling for the annexation of the West Bank by Israel. The resolution declared that the West Bank is “an inseparable part of the Land of Israel, the historical, cultural and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people” and that “Israel has the natural, historical and legal right to all of the territories of the Land of Israel,” reported the Times of Israel. It called on the government to “apply Israeli sovereignty, law, judgment and administration to all the areas of Jewish settlement of all kinds in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley,” the government’s term for the West Bank.
“This is our land. This is our home. The Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel,” Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana said after the vote. “In 1967, the occupation did not begin; it ended, and our homeland was returned to its rightful owners. We are the original first natives of this piece of land. Jews cannot be the ‘occupier’ of a land that for 3,000 years has been called Judea.”
