‘We have stopped turning the other cheek’: Far-right basks in apparent outpost legalization

Settler leaders and far-right politicians celebrate the security cabinet’s apparent approval overnight of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s proposal to legalize five West Bank outposts and a series of sanctions against the Palestinian Authority.

“I congratulate my friend Smotrich for leading the move, which I had the honor of co-initiating and taking part in preparing,” tweets Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock, of Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party.

“We have stopped turning the other cheek,” she adds. “We too know how to impose sanctions and exact painful prices… Any attempt to weaken us will only strengthen our hold on our land.”

Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, says in a statement that it is a “Zionist decision and a strong message of victory.”

“The new settlement will complete a succession of settlements in the region,” says Yaron Rosenthal, the head of the Gush Etzion Regional Council.

Israel Gantz, head of the Binyamin Regional Council, casts the decision as a measure “that strengthens the State of Israel.”

In contrast, the left-wing Peace Now organization says the decision is “crazy” and damages Israel’s relations with the US.

“Instead of worrying about the abandoned residents of the south and the north, the settler government gives a prize to criminals at the height of the war to satisfy Smotrich, who is collapsing in the polls,” the group says, referencing surveys consistently showing his Religious Zionism party failing to enter the Knesset if elections were to be held now.

“This is an illegitimate government that lost the faith of the people a long time ago and is being managed by a messianic, extremist minority that has to get out of our lives,” it claims.