(JNi.media) Israel Army Radio exposed a recording done secretly by a participant in a closed meeting of Prime Minister Netanyahu with Likud Knesset members, in which the PM both boasts of an unprecedented increase in settlement construction during his tenure, followed by his admission that, for the time being, he intends to freze construction.
“At the moment I’ve decided not to build,” Netanyahu is heard in the recording, “That does not mean that tomorrow it won’t change, on the contrary, the way it changed before, it will change [again].”
The Prime Minister emphasized to the members of his faction his general commitment to the settlements, when he told them, “No one suspect my loyalties to Eretz Israel and to the settlements.”
The recording can prove seriously damaging to the prime minister, who is estimated to have won the last election by usurping some five seats from Bayit Yehudi, a party which receives much of its support in Judea and Samaria. The revelation that Netanyahu is prepared to abandon the housing needs of hundreds of thousands of National-Religious voters who believed they were serving their best interest by switching their votes to him could be devastating to his Likud party in the future.
The Likud Knesset faction chairman, MK Tzachi Hanegbi, sent a letter to his members saying that starting with the next closed meeting, everyone will be required to hand over their smartphones at the door. Hanegbi wrote: “Never has such a thing happen in our circle and we must guarantee this will be the last time it did.”