Smotrich radicalizes messaging before elections: "We will trample people and procedures and Judaize the Negev and the Galilee"

The elections are approaching, and the messages are becoming more radical: The chairman of the Religious Zionism party, Bezalel Smotrich, presented today, Thursday, his plan "Yes. We are Judaizing!" for the Judaization of the Negev and the Galilee. He seeks to manage the Planning Administration and the Israel Land Authority (ILA).

"We are going to trample procedures and people to allow farms to be established," he declared. "We will remove from all these systems anti- and post-Zionist elements that have taken them over and bring back good people who understand the challenge of Judaizing the Negev and the Galilee. Through legislation. I will not beg officials and legal advisors."

According to him, he seeks to bring the settlement revolution from Judea and Samaria to the Negev and the Galilee, with the plan's center being a national goal of an additional million Jews through the establishment of 40 new settlements and dozens of farms, significant expansion of existing settlements, and the creation of hundreds of thousands of housing solutions. The Finance Minister did not specify the cost of the plan, but claimed that there are already existing plans on which it will be based.

To realize the move, Religious Zionism will demand the Planning Administration and the ILA as part of the next government and will act for a deep change in land and planning mechanisms. Alongside legislative changes, removing barriers, and shortening planning and marketing procedures, the party will act to change priorities and place professionals with a Zionist and national worldview in key positions in the planning and land systems.

Smotrich said: "Sorry that I am radical, we are going to trample procedures and people to allow farms to be established. We need to produce this faster and stronger. In the last 20 years, the Administration's planning policy was post-Zionist. The result — huge plans for Arab settlements mainly in the Galilee, which gives them disproportionate expansion, mainly in a way that chokes Jewish settlements. We will cancel all these plans that create sequences of Arab settlement in the Galilee and choke Jewish settlements. We will reverse the equation."

On the question of whether he already has lists of people he will remove from their positions as part of the proposed "purification," Smotrich did not elaborate. "We will remove from there post-Zionist and anti-Zionist elements that are dragging Israel to the abyss, and we will put in people who came to implement the policy," he said.

A central part of the plan was dedicated to the issue of national security and governance. He noted a figure from a security review by the Shin Bet according to which "in their opinion, there are a million illegal weapons in the Arab society in the State of Israel." He requested to bring the Shin Bet to deal with illegal weaponry in the Negev and the north, and to promote a national temporary order to fight crime with exceptional and draconian tools.

"We must dismantle the armed Arab autonomy. There should be a temporary order that defines possession of illegal weaponry as terrorism. Illegal weapon in your house or car? 10 years in prison. This will be draconian. When you are at war and facing terror you cannot work with these tools," he stated. According to him, the cost of establishing a detention facility for all the new detainees will be about 1.2 billion shekels.

"There is a system here that abandons the citizens of the State of Israel," he claimed. "The system is failing totally. We are fixing it with a reform in the judicial system. Simcha Rothman carved in stone one law after another and it needs to be completed in the next term. Appoint good judges. If we win there will be good judges, we will open these areas, and if the left appoints judges the Arabs will continue to conquer."