Government approves NIS 40 million for settlement councils

Government ministers approve a NIS 40 million ($11.5 million) grant for Israeli local and regional councils in the West Bank on Wednesday.

The vast majority of the grant will go toward “special expenses related to the security situation” in the Israeli settlements, and NIS 5.5 million ($1.5 million) will be used to bolster medical emergency stations throughout the West Bank.

Yesha settlement umbrella council spokesman Yigal Dilmoni tells The Times of Israel the allocation is an annual grant that Israeli local and regional councils receive each year. He adds that the amount is nearly identical to what they received in 2016.

The cabinet vote, which took place over the telephone, came just one day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with a group of prominent national religious rabbis — many of them settlers themselves — to request their support as he battles corruption allegations.

During the meeting, the rabbis raised a number of issues they want to see addressed, among them preventing the integration of women in military combat units and stepped-up construction in West Bank settlements, according to Haaretz.

The Prime Minister’s Office flatly denied any connection between the approved grant and Netanyahu’s meeting a day earlier. “This is an annual proposal that passes toward the end of every budget year,” it says in a Wednesday statement.

Dilmoni adds that “the issue (of the grant) was never even raised in yesterday’s meeting.”

— Jacob Magid