An influential member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition has told settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that the government is working covertly to irrevocably change how the territory is governed in a bid to solidify Israel’s control over it control without being charged with formally annexing the area.
In a recording of the speech, official Bezalel Smotrich can be heard hinting at a private event earlier this month that the goal was to prevent the West Bank from becoming part of a Palestinian state.
“I’m telling you, this is dramatic,” Mr. Smotrich told the Settler. “Such changes alter the DNA of the system.”
While it’s no secret that Smotrich opposes relinquishing control of the West Bank, the Israeli government’s official position is that the status of the West Bank remains subject to negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that Israel’s rule over the territory amounts to a temporary military occupation overseen by army generals, rather than a permanent civilian annexation run by Israeli civil servants.
Smotrich’s June 9 speech at a rally in the West Bank may make that posture harder to maintain. In it, he outlined an elaborate plan to wrest power in the West Bank away from the Israeli military and transfer it to civilians working for Smotrich within the Defense Department. Parts of the plan have been gradually implemented over the past 18 months, with some powers transferred to civilians.
“We created a separate civilian system,” Mr. Smotrich said. To deflect international scrutiny, he said, the government allowed the Defense Department to remain involved in the process so that it appeared the military remained at the heart of West Bank governance.
“In an international and legal context, this would be more acceptable,” Mr. Smotrich said. “That way they won’t say we’re here for annexation.”
The New York Times reporter listened to a recording of about half an hour of speech provided by one of the attendees, a researcher for the anti-Occupy movement group Peace Now. Smotrich’s spokesman, Eytan Fold, confirmed he gave the speech and said the event was not a secret.
Far-right lawmaker Smotrich said Netanyahu knew the details of the plan, much of which was foreshadowed in a coalition agreement between the two parties that would allow the prime minister to remain in power. Mr Smotrich said in his speech that Mr Netanyahu had “our full support”.
Future coalitions may reverse these changes if the government falls, but past government initiatives in the West Bank have generally remained unchanged across successive administrations.
For many Palestinians, Smotrich saying these words out loud may not come as a surprise to him as much as the speech itself.
“It was interesting to hear Smotrich confirm in his own voice most of the suspicions we had about his agenda,” said Ibrahim Dalalshah, director of the Horizon Center, a political analysis group in Ramallah, West Bank. .
However, Mr Darasha said the approach was not new.
Palestinians have said for years that Israeli leaders are trying to annex the West Bank in name only, establishing settlements in strategic locations to prevent continuous Palestinian control of the entire territory. “This has been happening since 1967,” Mr Darasha said. “It started long before Smotrich came on the scene,” he added.
Israel seized control of the territory from Jordan in 1967 during a war with three Arab states. Since occupying the territory, Israel has resettled more than 500,000 Israeli civilians, who are subject to Israeli civil law, in addition to some 3 million Palestinians, who are subject to Israeli military law. About 40 percent of the territory is administered by the Palestinian Authority, a semi-autonomous Palestinian-run body that relies on Israeli cooperation for much of its funding.
For decades, Israel’s Supreme Court has described Israel’s rule over the territory as a military occupation, overseen by top generals and consistent with international law that applies to occupied territories. The current governing coalition disputes the term “occupation,” but it also publicly denies that the West Bank has been permanently annexed and placed under the sovereign control of Israeli civilian authorities.
“The final status of these territories will be determined by direct negotiations between the parties,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement in response to Smotrich’s remarks. “This policy has not changed,” the statement added.
Mr. Smotrich’s speech showed the opposite view.
He singled out a change in which military officers no longer oversee much of Israel’s process of expanding settlements, expropriating land and building roads in the West Bank. He said those roles are now overseen by “a civilian under the Department of Defense” who does not work for military commanders but in a new department led by Smotrich.
Despite growing international pressure to declare a Palestinian state covering the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Smotrich’s comments showed that Israel is quietly working to consolidate its control of the West Bank and make It is more difficult to escape Israeli control.
Diplomats have been trying to reach a “grand deal” for the Middle East that would both end Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and improve Israel’s relations with other countries in the region. For example, Saudi Arabia said it would recognize Israel, but only if Israel in turn allowed Palestinian statehood.
Mr Smotrich’s speech showed how remote that prospect might be as he moves to merge governance of the occupied West Bank with that of the state of Israel.
Talia Sasson, a former senior official in the Israeli Ministry of Justice, said Mr Smotrich’s speech “fundamentally undermines the State of Israel’s long-standing argument that settlements are legal because they are temporary” of”. Thalia Sasson led an influential government inquiry into government support in 2005. for illegal settlements.
The speech made clear how powerful Israel’s once-marginal settler movement has become.
Mr. Smotrich is a long-time settler activist who has built settlement camps outside Israeli institutions that are considered illegal even under Israeli law. A religious hardliner, he believes the West Bank – which Israelis call Judea and Samaria by its biblical name – was given to the Jews by God.
As a lawmaker for the past decade, Smotrich drew attention for his frequent extremist rhetoric, including calling for the destruction of a Palestinian town; support the segregation of Arabs and Jews in maternity wards; and his support for Jewish landowners who would not sell their property to Arabs.
Since late 2022, Mr. Smotrich has exerted extraordinary influence on government policy. That’s when his party joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, helping it gain a slim majority in parliament.
Smotrich used this influence to persuade Netanyahu to appoint him to posts at the Defense and Finance Ministries, a position Smotrich used to block funding for the Palestinian Authority.
“My goal — and I’m thinking of all of you here — is first and foremost to prevent the establishment of a state of terror in the heart of the land of Israel,” Smotrich said in a recorded speech.
Smotrich said his main achievement was bringing many military responsibilities in the West Bank under civilian control. While the military often turns a blind eye to settlement expansion and even defends unauthorized settlements from Palestinian attacks, soldiers have sometimes destroyed settler camps built without government permission and barred Israeli activists from entering the West Bank.
Mr Smotrich said that to counteract this impact, the Government had:
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Depriving the top military commander in the West Bank of the ability to block settlement-building plans.
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Receive nearly $270 million from the Israeli defense budget to defend settlements in 2024-2025.
In part, Smotrich’s comments appeared to be an attempt to quell criticism from his own supporters about his record in office. Settler activists say the army still frequently prevents them from building new settlement outposts and that Mr Smotrich does not intervene enough.
“Fifteen years ago, I was one of those guys running around the mountains, setting up tents,” Mr. Smotrich told the settlers in his speech. Now, he says his behind-the-scenes work will have a greater impact than building any one settlement camp.
Jonathan Rice Contributed reporting from Tel Aviv and Adam Rasgon From Jerusalem.
