On Wednesday, Knesset member Eli Cohen, Israel’s Minister of Economy and Industry (Kulanu Party) toured the Bedouin Khan al-Ahmar settlement with Regavim, and called for the illegal outpost’s evacuation before the upcoming national elections.
Regavim presented Cohen with a survey of the legal and geographic aspects of the systematic program of illegal construction carried out by the Palestinian Authority, of which Khan al-Ahmar is a flagship project.
“Only yesterday, the Director of Israel’s General Security Service [Shabak] revealed the illegitimate and dangerous attempts by a foreign government to interfere in the upcoming Israeli elections, but foreign governments and organizations are heavily involved in undermining the rule of law in Israel through extensive illegal construction and massive funding of the Palestinian Authority’s ongoing takeover of strategic areas in Judea and Samaria, particularly in the Adumim region,” said Yishai Hemo, Regavim’s Field Coordinator for Judea and Samaria.
Cohen remarked following this fact-finding tour: “This morning I came to see the Khan al Ahmar ‘outpost,’ which the Supreme Court has approved for evacuation. This outpost was built with the help of foreign interests that are meddling in Area C.”
“The State of Israel has laws, and those laws must be obeyed. Therefore, the Khan al-Ahmar outpost must be evacuated even before the elections. But more than that, the message must go out from to all those who are attempting to deny us territorial control: Area C must be annexed and brought under Israeli sovereignty,” he said. “This is the answer to all those who are trying to come in and establish facts on the ground. We are the ones who should be establishing facts on the ground through annexation and sovereignty over Area C.”
