Smotrich has a plan to annex the West Bank and Netanyahu supports it
An outpost near the Israeli Ma’aleh Levona settlement in the West Bank, July 2023
The lead editorial in Haaretz on 24 June 2024:
A recorded speech by Religious Zionism chair Bezalel Smotrich was reported in the New York Times on Friday, revealing a grand plan by the settler leader and his political partner, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to change Israel’s DNA.
In his speech, Smotrich admitted that the government is annexing the West Bank behind the world’s back and using the army to conceal its actions. Smotrich, the finance minister, is also a minister in the Defense Ministry, which is responsible for the Civil Administration in the West Bank. In the latter position, he is actively working on behalf of the settlement enterprise.
Last week, at a conference held in the West Bank, he told his listeners of the progress in transferring control of the West Bank from the army to the government – that is, to him. He said the changes to date are “mega-dramatic,” the kind that “change a system’s DNA.”
He also revealed the tricks he is using in his plan to annex the West Bank. “We created a separate civilian system,” he said. But to avoid international criticism, the government has kept the Defense Ministry involved in the process, making it seem like the military is still the main player in governing the West Bank. “It will be easier to swallow in the international and legal context,” he explained. “So that they won’t say that we are doing annexation here.”
In other quotes from the speech that weren’t included in the Times report, he revealed the method. “We didn’t invent the wheel,” he said. “It’s always been like this in Israel. You take a farmer, 1,000 head of cattle, a minuscule investment, and he protects 40,000 dunams for you.” In his view, “Within a few months, there will be a model that enables us to legalize the vast majority of the farms, which will open the door to investing and arranging infrastructure.”
Don’t fall for the delusion that the settler right is working behind Netanyahu’s back, who is a disciple of the status quo. According to Smotrich, from the moment the prime minister understood what was happening, he has been “with us full on.” Netanyahu and the settlers are one and the same.
Smotrich is currently removing the legal barriers to changing the civilian situation in the West Bank. He has added staff and appointed his own deputy head of the Civil Administration with full authority over a wealth of issues, from planning to enforcement. The only person who could intervene in his work is the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff.
According to Smotrich, the police won’t protect public order, and certainly won’t protect the Palestinians. He added that enforcement has certain goals, and in the West Bank, “weight is given to one big purpose that is ultimately – what can you do? – geopolitical, strategic and security-related.”
Netanyahu, Smotrich and their colleagues are annexing the West Bank right now. They are instituting apartheid and destroying the two-state solution. And if they succeed, Israel will cease to exist as a democratic country.
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