Nadine Osman
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich directed his department to prepare for West Bank annexation following Donald Trump’s US election win.
At a November 11 meeting with his Religious Zionism Party, Smotrich called Trump’s win an “important opportunity” for sovereignty. He declared, “The time has come to apply sovereignty” over the West Bank.
His office confirmed he instructed authorities to prepare infrastructure for extending Israeli sovereignty over West Bank settlements.
In addition to being finance minister, Smotrich holds a defence ministry position overseeing illegal settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Smotrich and other far-right Israeli politicians celebrated Trump’s election. They hope his administration will green-light Israel’s annexation of Palestinian territories seized in 1967.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem and Golan Heights, actions unrecognized internationally but endorsed by Washington during Trump’s first term. Smotrich vowed to push the Israeli government for recognition of the annexation of the entire West Bank. He sought support from the incoming Trump administration.
During Trump’s presidency (2017-2021), Israel appeared ready to announce the annexation of Area C, fully controlled by the military. However, intense international pressure and hesitancy from Washington ultimately shelved those plans.
Smotrich has long called for a more aggressive expansionist policy, and just last month, he suggested that Israel should expand “little by little” until its borders reached Damascus. “It is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus,” he said in an interview for the documentary In Israel: Ministers of Chaos, referring to the “Greater Israel” ideology, which envisions the expansion of Israel across the Middle East.
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