Smotrich said to tell Civil Administration of ‘great opportunity’ to annex West Bank
Report says minister expressed hope that gov’t will ‘create full normalization’ of Israeli rule during Trump’s tenure by shuttering the Defense Ministry body that manages the area
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently told workers of the Defense Ministry body in charge of Israeli and Palestinian civil affairs in the West Bank that he hopes to shut down the department as part of an envisioned Israeli annexation of the area, Hebrew media reported Thursday.
The report comes as settlers and far-right lawmakers have become hopeful that US President-elect Donald Trump’s pro-Israel appointments — among them his intended ambassador, Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Christian who has said the West Bank is not under occupation and prefers the term “communities” to “settlements” — will help fulfill their dream of full Israeli control over the West Bank.
“I hope we’ll have a great opportunity with the new US administration to create full normalization [of Israeli rule] and bring government ministries in here,” he was quoted by the Ynet news site as telling Civil Administration officials.
“There will be an orderly process, and we’re working now on solidifying the administrative work and putting the plan on the table.”
He added: “This is a serious statement, I’ve spoken with the prime minister about it and we are taking it very, very seriously. I also spoke with the designated ambassador to Washington, Dr. Yechiel Leiter. We are trying to create a real process here. There is a lot of work involved, but this was once an impossible reality, and we can make it a reality.”
Leiter is a former settler leader who has advocated for annexing large parts of the West Bank and against the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Applying sovereignty would likely entail annexing Israeli settlements in the West Bank and extending Israeli civil law to their residents. Since capturing the West Bank during the 1967 Six-Day War, the entire territory has remained under military, rather than civil, rule.
Smotrich said in November that the incoming Trump administration provides Israel with the opportunity to advance the annexation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, citing the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem, the recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, and the decision to declare that Israel’s West Bank settlements were consistent with international law during Trump’s first term.
However, it is by no means certain Trump will give backing to a move that puts at risk Washington’s strategic ambition of a wider deal under the Abraham Accords to normalize Israel’s ties with Saudi Arabia, which, like most countries in the world, rejects Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.
At least two officials in Trump’s previous administration have warned senior Israeli ministers not to assume that the president-elect will support Israel annexing the West Bank in his second term, three sources familiar with the conversations told The Times of Israel last month.
While Trump did present a peace plan in 2020 that envisioned Israel annexing all of its settlements, the proposal still allowed for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the remaining areas of the West Bank.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the proposal with reservations at the time, while Smotrich and many of the settler leaders came out against the Trump plan.
Earlier this year, The New York Times cited recordings in which Smotrich described a “mega-dramatic” plan to transfer authority over the West Bank from the military to civilian rule under his authority in the Defense Ministry, where he was handed broad powers as demanded in his Religious Zionism party’s coalition deal with Netanyahu’s Likud.
Jacob Magid and Agencies contributed to this report.
