Netanyahu backs push to expand Jewish settlement in Negev, Galilee, says legal obstacles can be ‘overcome’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government is working to expand Jewish settlement in the Negev and Galilee, including by offering reservists preferential access to land, saying legal obstacles for doing so would be “overcome.”

During his lengthy appearance on Channel 14’s “The Patriots” program this evening, Netanyahu is asked about illegal Arab construction in the two regions, which the host portrays as a growing security and demographic threat.

In response, Netanyahu points to a recently approved benefits package for reservists “to essentially receive land for free in the Galilee, in the Negev, in communities near the border.”

Netanyahu says he has recruited a team of individuals “in order to bring the farms into the Negev and into the Galilee. In other words, to strengthen settlement [there.]”

“Farms” is the term increasingly used by the settler movement to refer to illegal outposts established throughout the West Bank, often in the vicinity of Palestinian communities. Many attacks by violent extremist settlers have come from such wildcat outposts.

“”There are some legal questions… It doesn’t matter; we’ll overcome it,” he says, adding, “We are acting out of recognition of the importance of settlement, both in the Negev and in the Galilee, and of the importance of giving reservists a genuine opportunity and preferential treatment so that they will be there, so that they will settle our land.”

Netanyahu does not elaborate on the “legal questions” involved.

The comments come three days after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich unveiled a pre-election plan to expand what he calls his settlement “revolution” from the West Bank to the Negev and Galilee, explicitly describing the initiative as a program to “Judaize” the regions.

Smotrich’s proposal would seek to accelerate Jewish settlement through Israel’s planning and land-allocation authorities, including by canceling some existing plans for Arab communities, stepping up enforcement against illegal construction, and prioritizing Jewish development.

Asked if he too means to “Judaize” the regions, Netanyahu answers: “Call it what you will.”