Barely three days have passed since the Government of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, gave the first approval to the plan that will allow [de Israel]”, which in practice means the annexation of lands recognized as Palestinian under agreements and international law. This Wednesday, the Minister of Finance and leader of the ultra Religious Zionist Party, Belazel Smotrich, has demanded what he had already been asking for the inhabitants of the other occupied Palestinian enclave, the Gaza Strip. That the Palestinians leave.
the far-right politician proclaimed in an intervention with a marked electoral character. Although the next elections must be held within several months, in October, Smotrich has referred to the duties of the next Israeli Executive, with the doubt of whether Netanyahu’s Likud will need the ultras again to be able to govern and at a time when the polls do not support its formation.
Smotrich has assured that this future Government must “destroy the idea of an Arab terrorist state”, but not only that, to do so it must also continue acting on a legal level and “finally, formally and practically cancel the damned Oslo Accords and embark on the path towards sovereignty, while promoting migration, both from [la Franja de] Gaza, as from Judea and Samaria.”
Judea and Samaria refers to the occupied West Bank, since they are the names of the biblical provinces that. Although the settler movement clamoring to resettle in Gaza had been reinforced by the destruction of the enclave after the 7-O attacks by Hamas and by the project to convert the Strip into a marina with resorts and casinos, the reality is that it is the first time that it is expressly requested for the West Bank that the Israelis have already occupied militarily since 1967.
A Smotrich in low hours seeks colonist applause
It should be noted that the space chosen by Smotrich to make this series of statements and proposals has not been at all coincidental. He did so in a meeting with leaders of local settlements, that is, before settlers. The same minister who unblocked a plan buried in a drawer 20 years ago to expand the illegal colonies in Jerusalem, in the so-called E2 zone, had already anticipated that the objective was to prevent the formation of a future Palestinian State.
It is also worth noting that, according to surveys by the the Religious Zionist Party would not be going through its best moment ahead of future elections. If these projections materialize, their representation in the Knesset is not guaranteed, since they could either reach the minimum threshold to enter the Israeli Parliament or be left out.
