Middle East Monitor / December 6, 2024
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced plans to shut down the Civil Administration in the occupied West Bank, a significant move toward his broader objective of annexing the territory.
According to The Times of Israel, the far-right minister stated that the proposal had been coordinated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was intended to coincide with the upcoming presidency of US President-elect Donald Trump.
“I hope we’ll have a great opportunity with the new US administration to create full normalisation and bring government ministries in here,” Smotrich told the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
“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.”
Under the 1995 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was divided into three sections – Area A, B and C.
The planned shutdown of the Israeli Civil Administration unit, which oversees civil services for around 250,000 Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank, marks a significant move in the Israeli government’s broader annexation agenda.
It comes after Smotrich emphasised in November that the incoming Trump administration presented Israel with the power to enforce Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank.
He referenced key decisions from Trump’s first term, including recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital and relocating the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognising the Syrian Golan Heights as Israeli territory, and declaring Israel’s West Bank settlements consistent with international law, as precedents that could pave the way for this agenda.
“This is a vision for the Day of Reckoning, and we can achieve it,” said Smotrich.
Smotrich has never hidden his intention to annex the West Bank. In March last year, addressing a conference in Paris, he stood by a map of ‘Greater Israel’, portraying the occupied West Bank and Jordan as part of the self-proclaimed Jewish State.
