Smotrich accuses dairy industry of ‘violent power plays to take over the State of Israel’

By Sue Surkes

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4 February 2026, 11:42 am

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Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of Religious Zionism leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, January 19, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

As convoys of dairy farmers head to the Knesset from different parts of the country to protest a controversial dairy reform, the reform’s architect, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, posts on X that he will not allow the dairy monopolies to “cynically continue to exploit the citizens of Israel” or conduct “violent power plays to take over the State of Israel.”

Smotrich is intent on breaking the centralized planning that has characterized the country’s dairy industry since the beginning of the state.

He wants to slash domestic milk production by 30 percent, lower by 15% the price per liter that processing companies pay to dairy farmers, and scrap tariffs to allow more imports.

“Even after the reform, approximately 80% of the milk you drink and the cheeses you eat will continue to be produced right here in Israel,” he vows.

“We are preserving local production, safeguarding our magnificent Israeli agriculture, and strengthening food security,” he goes on. “We are simply changing the rules and doing it correctly, the same way it is done in most countries around the world.”

Addressing the three big dairy processing companies, Tnuva, Tara and Strauss — responsible, he said earlier this week, for 85% of the market — he says current customs duties created “a protected bubble” that allowed the dairy giants “to charge you prices that are over 50% higher than the rest of the world.”

He continues, “They had no incentive to compete or lower prices. That ends now. Opening the market to imports will force the large companies to sweat and face international competition for the first time. They will have to fight for every customer.”

Despite a recommendation by the legal adviser to the Knesset on Tuesday to separate the reform from the Economic Arrangements Bill that accompanies the state budget, Smotrich says, “The reform is moving forward. It has been transferred for discussion to MK Ohad Tal in the Reforms Committee and will be promoted, God willing, within the framework of the budget and the Arrangements Law.”