Israel’s far-right finance minister has announced that the Israeli government would promote illegal West Bank settlements and implement punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority (PA) in response to Palestinian moves against Israel on the international stage.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated that the government had endorsed his proposal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, which typically announces cabinet-level decisions, is yet to issue any statements about this.
Among the measures Smotrich said he was advancing were the revocation of various approvals and benefits for senior officials in the PA, the approval of new settlement buildings, and the retroactive sanctioning of some Jewish settlements.
This announcement comes days after the leak of a recording of a speech he gave earlier this month, in which he spoke about preventing the occupied West Bank from becoming part of an independent Palestinian state.
He discussed developing extensive settler-only transit and road systems in the occupied West Bank over the next few years to encourage settlement.
“This is a revolution; this is how you bring a million people to Judea and Samaria,” Smotrich said, using the term by which Zionists describe the occupied West Bank.
The audio was provided to CNN by the Israeli NGO Peace Now, which had a representative in the room during the speech. Smotrich’s office had stated earlier this month that the minister would be attending an event about Jewish settlement, with the goal of “preventing a terrorist state in the heart of the State of Israel.”