From After budget hike, Finance Minstry seeks another NIS 200 million for settlements ministry
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
The Finance Ministry requests an additional NIS 200 million in funding for the controversial Settlements and National Projects Ministry from the Knesset Finance Committee, after it already received over NIS 300 million in additional funds as part of the 2023 supplementary budget that was approved earlier this month.
Labor MK Naama Lazimi, a member of the Finance Committee, says that NIS 75 million of the additional funds would go to the acquisition of “security components” for illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank, while another NIS 75 million would be dedicated to longer-term infrastructure projects in those outposts.
Lazimi’s fellow Finance Committee member MK Vladimir Beliak says the other NIS 50 million would be funneled to the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement’s Division for “all sorts of unknown projects.”
Lazimi argues that if there are security necessities then the money should be directed through the defense ministry and not “a fictitious and unnecessary ministry,” in reference to the settlements ministry which opposition parties have denounced as a conduit for channeling partisan funds for the pet projects of the Religious Zionism party.
“This is a waste of public funds, being passed in an ambush, in a cynical and ridiculous manner at a time of war,” Lazimi adds.
Approval of the funds is set to be brought for a vote in committee on Sunday.
A spokesperson for Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock, who like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is a member of the far-right National Religious party, does not respond to a request for comment on the issue.
