Smotrich demands AG retract delay to E1 tender, accuses her of election interference

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich demands that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara retract her instruction to delay the advancement of the highly contentious E1 settlement project, accusing her of interfering in the election.

He also calls on the chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg, to “ensure” that the attorney general does not become an “active player” in the election, which is exactly a month away.

Baharav-Miara recently ordered a month-long postponement of the deadline for submitting proposals for a tender to build 1,200 housing units in the E1 area between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim until after the October 27 election, asserting that advancement of the project could be used in electioneering.

“Gali Baharav-Miara is trying to stop the construction in E1. She is interfering in the election campaign and working for [Yashar party leader] Gadi Eisenkot,” claims Smotrich, who has spearheaded the government’s massive expansion of West Bank settlements. Eisenkot has criticized the timing of the E1 tenders but has not said he would cancel the project.

In a letter to the attorney general, Smotrich insists that the E1 tender process has nothing to do with the election, describing it as “the direct and professional continuation of technical processes began long before the election period.”

The E1 project was approved in August 2025 after years of delays, and the Housing Ministry published a tender for the construction of the first lot of housing units in August this year.

“I call on Justice Sohlberg… [to] ensure that the attorney general and her people do not turn into active players in the election campaign in an attempt to back up the left, prevent the right from forming a government, and to enable the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger the existence of the State of Israel,” says Smotrich.

The E1 project is extremely controversial since it essentially cuts off territorial contiguity between key Palestinian population centers, from Ramallah to the north of Jerusalem, Bethlehem to the south, and the Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

Smotrich called the approval of the E1 plan a “significant step that practically erases the two-state delusion” when it received final authorization last year.