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Knesset members, including several from the opposition benches, participated in a meeting of the Land of Israel Caucus and roundly criticised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reluctance to build housing units in major West Bank settlement blocs, which most assume will remain part of Israel under any future peace deal.

The Land of Israel Caucus is usually attended mainly by Likud and Jewish Home MKs, but several opposition parliamentarians took to the floor yesterday. Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, who has been vocal in recent months on foreign and diplomatic policy, boldly claimed, “If I were prime minister, within three weeks, I could close a deal that says we formally freeze [construction] outside the blocs — in exchange for building within the blocs, Gush Etzion, Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel.” These three areas are considered to be the major West Bank blocs which would remain under Israeli control.

As a result, Lapid and also leader of the opposition, Zionist Union head Isaac Herzog have argued that Israel maintain and develop these areas, while relinquishing control of more remote areas. Lapid added that “isolated settlements are not the same as blocs.”

Echoing a similar theme, Zionist Union MK Yoel Hasson brandished a copy of the letter sent by former-US President George W Bush for Israel’s then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2004, recognising that the major West Bank settlement blocs would remain part of Israel in return for a pull-out from the Gaza Strip, which materialised in 2005. President Obama has not endorsed the Bush letter.

Hasson addressed Ma’aleh Adumim’s Mayor, saying, “For years you trusted your friends in the Likud to help you, but they sold you out for a few more caravans” in remote outposts. Hasson called on right-wing MKs to threaten to leave the coalition “If you really cared about Ma’aleh Adumim.”

Meanwhile, Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Lieberman said that there is an effective construction freeze in Ma’aleh Adumim as Netanyahu “is strong on TV and weak in reality.”