Takeover of the West Bank by Israel’s Finance Minister Raises Concerns About a Permanent Occupation

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration has discreetly made historic moves toward perhaps permanently securing Israel’s rule over the West Bank while attention is focused on its divisive judicial reform.

In his coalition deal with Netanyahu, settlement movement leader and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich acquired increased authority over the seized land. Smotrich moved quickly to legalize previously unapproved wildcat outposts, allow thousands of additional settlement dwellings, and make it more difficult for Palestinians to move about and construct homes.

According to experts, his job as the first government minister to supervise civilian life in the West Bank amounts to an admission that Israel’s 56-year military occupation is not only temporary but rather permanent.

Ilan Paz, the former director of Israel’s Civil Administration, the military agency in charge of managing civil activities in the West Bank, warned that if Smotrich stays in his current post for another four years, there would be “no turning back.”

In order to establish his ruling coalition last year, Netanyahu made significant concessions to pro-settler MPs like Smotrich in the hopes of regaining power despite facing a corruption investigation. In the 60% of the West Bank that Israel controls that is under its authority, the coalition agreement established a new Israeli settler agency, headed by Smotrich, under the Defense Ministry to oversee Jewish and Palestinian building.

According to human rights attorney Michael Sfard, the transfer of authority from the military, which is legally required to take into account the welfare of occupied people, to those who are simply devoted to Israeli interests, is akin to a revolution.

According to Smotrich, he wants to quadruple the number of settlers, develop communities and highways, and eliminate any distinctions between life for Israelis in Israel proper and the West Bank. He intends to crush any Palestinian dreams of independence along the road.

Smotrich may direct public monies for West Bank infrastructure projects as finance minister. A record-breaking $960 million, or one-fourth of all monies allocated to the Transportation Ministry, were set aside in Israel’s 2024 budget for a better highway system linking Israel and the West Bank. Over 5% of Israel’s population are settlers.

The West Bank is seen by Smotrich and his allies as the biblical heartland of the Jewish people, and they foresee a unitary state stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, where Palestinians may live in peace as second-class citizens or leave.

“We believed that because of where we lived, the state never gave us priority. According to Smotrich spokeswoman Eitan Fuld, that is changing.

While Smotrich’s new settler agency is now in charge of handling land-use problems in the territory, COGAT, the military entity that is in charge of the Civil Administration, continues to have particular oversight duties over more than 2 million Palestinians. Rights organizations and others have likened the separation along ethnic lines to “apartheid.”

The West Bank, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East conflict together with east Jerusalem and Gaza, is home to some 500,000 people. The settlements are largely regarded as unlawful by the international world.

According to experts and authorities, Smotrich’s tactics have already made things worse for Palestinians, given aggressive settlers more power, and sparked unrest inside the military. The White House’s relationship with the Netanyahu administration has also been strained by recent settlement construction.

Smotrich turned down requests for interviews.

According to former West Bank military commander Gadi Shamni, “Smotrich took over the Civil Administration, the only tool that Israel has to calm things down.” “The West Bank is going to blow up.”

According to U.N. statistics, the number of settler assaults per month has increased by nearly 30% since 2022. According to anti-settlement monitor Peace Now, the government has authorized 13,000 settlement housing units and 20 outposts that were erected without permission, the largest numbers since the organisation began keeping track in 2012.

Israeli officials continued to demolish illegally erected Palestinian structures under Smotrich. In July, COGAT admitted that it denies more over 95% of Palestinian requests for permits.

According to the Israeli rights organization B’Tselem, this year has seen slightly more demolitions than previous year, which had the highest since at least 2006.

According to settlers, Israeli authorities are now making less of an effort to remove illegal Jewish settlements.

Shulamit Ben Yashar, 32, a resident of Asa’el, a settlement in the dry hills south of Hebron, said, “This is the best government we’ve ever had.” On September 6, the outpost, which houses 90 families, including Smotrich’s brother Tuvia, gained legal authorization.

Mothers enthused about their intentions to replace rickety trailers and gasping generators with concrete and Israel’s national energy system, igniting renovation fever at the Asa’el playground.

Masafer Yatta, a group of Palestinian herders who traverse arid mountains, are threatened with deportation by Israeli authorities and escalating violence by settlers. Smotrich and his accomplices, according to locals in the rural region that the Israeli force aims to occupy, are sucking the life out of their towns.

38-year-old Sameer Hammdeh, whose two camels perished last month after tripping on trip wires he said were installed by settlers, said, “We can hardly breathe.” Residents claim that settler provocations, such as destroying Palestinian automobiles and cattle, are a result of the government-instilled culture of impunity.

Additionally, Smotrich and his supporters have committed to speed up colony building. The government reduced the number of mandatory approval stages for settlement progress from six to two in July: Smotrich and a planning committee.

According to Zvi Yedidia Sukkot, a politician for Smotrich’s Religious Zionist party, “this makes it possible to build much more.”

The party has suggested providing $180 million towards the construction of new hospitals and schools as well as renovation of settlement homes. Two new, multimillion-dollar bypass highways are being built by the authorities to transport Israeli settlers through Palestinian communities.

One of the routes circles Hawara, a hotspot settlement where residents went on a burning spree earlier this year after two of them were fatally shot. Smotrich at the time suggested that the town be “erased.”

At Homesh, one of the four outposts that Israel evacuated in 2005, Rabbi Menachem Ben Shachar, a teacher at a recently constructed yeshiva seminary, said, “Our government has finally realized that withdrawing from land is a prize for terror.”

This year, lawmakers removed the law that had restricted settlers’ access to the property. On a recent visit, more than 50 students were rocking in prayer at the yeshiva.

The Israeli military establishment feels uneasy as a result of these choices. Israeli soldiers allegedly attempted to block settlers from transporting large construction equipment to build a new yeshiva in May, according to settlers. But when Smotrich persisted, the administration suddenly gave the go-ahead for soldiers to let settlers to construct.

Former West Bank area commander Nitzan Alon said that “the political echelon ordered the military echelon not to obey the law.”

COGAT and the military refused to comment on the event. However, a security officer who asked to remain anonymous in order to talk about the situation indicated that Smotrich’s involvement had prevented many planned demolitions in unapproved outposts.

When Israeli forces were seen on camera permanently shutting Palestinian water supplies south of Hebron by injecting cement into wells, the struggle between Smotrich stalwarts and security-minded IDF personnel erupted last month. The wells had been dug by Palestinians without Israel’s usual permission.

According to the security officer, COGAT was taken by surprise when the video went viral on social media. The government said that any upcoming water cistern demolitions “would be examined based on their merits.”

Smotrich’s soldiers are “crossing all the lines,” according to the former general Paz. They are indifferent.