Israeli Minister: Trump Win Signals Time for Terrifying New Assault

Israel's top leadership has indicated that they see Donald Trump's forthcoming administration as a free license to settle Palestine.

In a statement celebrating Trump's win, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced on Monday that "the time has come" to extend Israeli law over the occupied West Bank, reported The Washington Post.

Smotrich, himself a settler who also wields a defense ministry supervisory role overseeing the West Bank and settlements, added that he hoped the new administration would recognize the Israeli sovereignty push, and that the "only way to remove" the "threat" of a Palestinian state would be to force sovereignty "over the entire settlements in Judea and Samaria," referring to the West Bank by its biblical name.

Earlier on Monday, the nation's new foreign minister, Gideon Sa'ar, said that the government had not yet made a decision about annexing the West Bank, but explained that the issue had been discussed with Trump during his first term and that it would be "discussed again with our friends in Washington" if relevant, reported

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, when it claimed the Palestinian territory from Jordan. Since then, it has increasingly encroached on the land, expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank (which Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention) despite decades of peace agreements with Palestine.