“All the land of Israel is ours.” With these words, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich asked his own government to annex the West Bank. The region, known internationally as the West Bank, is partially occupied by Israeli settlers financed and supported by Tel Aviv. Smotrich wants to put an end to the status in force since the 1993 Oslo agreements which provide for a division of the territory into three sectors: A (under Palestinian control and administration); B (with Israeli control and Palestinian administration); C (under Israeli control and administration).
The speech
“The time has come to permanently erase the lines separating areas A, B and C. This week I presented a detailed plan to the Council of Ministers and I call on the prime minister to adopt it,” Smotrich said in a speech marking Jerusalem Day. The far-right leader was at Yeshiva Merkaz HaRav in Jerusalem, a flagship institution of the religious Zionist movement, founded in the 1920s by the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine, Abraham Isaac Kook. Smotrich had studied at this institution as a young man.
The minister claimed responsibility for the results of the Israeli government which in over three and a half years “has approved over one hundred new settlements in Judea and Samaria (the biblical name, ed.) and 60 thousand housing units” for the settlers. “The people of Israel are returning home, and this time for good,” the leader of the Religious Zionism party exulted. Elections are scheduled for autumn in Israel and according to polls the political formation led by Smotrich will not be able to pass the 3.25 percent threshold, losing the current seven seats.