“We need new building to survive, and not words”

Ma’aleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel, who heads one of the largest Israeli West Bank settlement blocs, had four words of advice for Prime Minister Netanyahu: ‘stop talking, start building.”

Kashriel came to the Knesset on Monday already angered by Netanyahu’s silent freeze of the settlement blocs, and the words he heard there only made him more upset. “I’m very angry,” said Kashriel, who is a long-time Likud Central Committee member.

Likud politicians on Tuesday started to place a positive right-wing spin on Netanyahu’s Knesset speech, which hinted at the possibility that the Zionist entity could relinquish part of the West Bank not included in the settlement blocs.

 “I’m embarrassed to say it, but it was easier to build in the settlements under a Labor government than under a right-wing Likud one,” he said. “We need new building to survive, and not words,” Kashriel said.