Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Gilan Erdan (center) with a delegation of US ambassadors visiting Israel on Sunday, including US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman (center right) and US Special Envoy to Monitor Anti-Semitism Elan Carr (far right). Photo: Strategic Affairs Ministry.

JNS.org – Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan met with a delegation of US ambassadors and other officials in Israel on Sunday where he told the US envoys that the current situation in Gaza shows that calling for Israeli territorial withdrawals leads to increased terrorism.

“The current situation in Gaza is proof of the failure of the approach calling for Israeli withdrawals,” Erdan told the delegation of US ambassadors hailing from the European Union, Germany, Portugal, France, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, as well as the Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating anti-Semitism Elan Carr and the Commissioner for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad.

“If we relinquish full control of Judea and Samaria, Judea and Samaria will become Gaza, and rockets will then be launched at the State of Israel,” he said.

Erdan’s remarks to the US delegation come ahead of an expected peace plan to be released by the Trump administration in June. While few details of the plan have been released thus far, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long maintained that Israel must retain security control over Judea and Samaria, including the strategic Jordan Valley region, in any peace deal.

The US delegation, which took part last week in the March of the Living in Poland, was in Israel to discuss the political, security and strategic situation facing the Jewish state, as well as the fight against BDS and the delegitimization of Israel.

“We must ensure that the United States examines the BDS organizations that have connections to terrorist elements,” Erdan told the US officials. “I approached the US Secretary of the Treasury [Steve] Mnuchin and asked him to examine BNC [the BDS National Committee] activity in the United States, the Palestinian-based headquarters of the BDS, stating we have evidence showing they maintain contact with internationally recognized terrorist organizations.”

Erdan also briefed the delegation on how the European Union and European countries are funding BDS organizations in Israel, and encouraged the US ambassadors to help to persuade European governments to stop funding these BDS groups.

“We must ensure that EU funds do not reach boycott organizations hiding behind human-rights organizations when human rights are the last thing that interests them.”