Settler leaders say they will attend Trump inauguration after receiving invite
The Yesha settlement council says it will send an official delegation to the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump in Washington next week after receiving an invitation, as it seeks to hit the ground running with the potentially settlement-friendly leader.
The umbrella group representing Israel’s more than 120 West Bank settlements makes the announcement on Facebook, where it also asks supporters to sign a Hebrew-language letter it says it intends to deliver to the administration thanking Trump for “redeeming” Jerusalem and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
President Donald Trump delivers his inaugural address on the West Front of the US Capitol on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images/AFP)
According to Israel National News, the delegation will include Binyamin Regional Council head Israel Gantz, who heads Yesha; Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, and Yesha foreign affairs chief Eliana Passentin, a native Californian, among others.
“The invitation we received from the government is an expression of the values Israel and the settlement movement share with the US as a light of Biblical values,” Gantz says in a statement carried by the outlet, which has close ties to the settler movement
Yesha has long administered its own foreign policy wing independent of the Israeli government, though they often work in concert. The group has close ties with likely incoming US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R) lays bricks at a housing complex in the West Bank settlement of Efrat on August 1, 2018. (Jacob Magid/Times of Israel)
In 2017, the group sent a lower-level delegation to Trump’s first inauguration, led by former Efrat mayor Oded Revivi, who was the group’s foreign envoy. At the time, he told the Associated Press that the group had been invited by a member of Trump’s “first circle” of advisers, but refused to name the person.
Agencies contributed to this report.
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