The Times of Israel has confirmed that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is doing what he said he was doing in the speech that was leaked to the New York Times, last week. According to the Times of Israel report, the IDF has recently approved the transfer of a raft of legal powers in the West Bank to a civilian administrator, prompting accusations that the government has increased its civil control over the territory in a further step toward de-facto annexation.” The new administrator, one Hillel Roth, it turns out, is a close associate of Smotrich, who shares the same radical ideology.
The move essentially puts a large amount of power over civilian affairs in the West Bank in the hands of a civilian working out of the Defense Ministry, in contravention of Israel’s policy, since it captured the territory from Jordan in 1967, to have all civilian affairs managed by military officers, ToI reports further. It will likely allow the new administrator, under the direction of the ultranationalist Smotrich, to greatly ramp up the expansion and development of West Bank settlements, to further advance their stated goal of the full annexation of the territory.
Longtime anti-settlement activist Yehuda Shaul described the step as “de jure annexation,” claiming that “Israeli civilian governance has been extended into the West Bank” under Smotrich’s guidance.
