Finance minister proposes 40 new communities and 1 million additional Jewish residents, saying his party would take control of key land agencies and remove officials he calls ‘anti-Zionist’With Israel’s election approaching, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday unveiled an ambitious and confrontational plan to dramatically expand Jewish settlement in the Negev and Galilee, saying his party would seek control over the country’s main planning and land authorities in the next government.Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, presented a program titled “Yes. Judaize!” aimed at increasing the Jewish population of the two regions by 1 million people through the establishment of 40 new communities, dozens of agricultural farms, major expansions of existing towns and hundreds of thousands of new housing units.Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)“We are going to steamroll procedures and people to allow farms to be established,” Smotrich said. “We will remove from all these systems anti-Zionist and post-Zionist elements who have taken them over, and bring back good people who understand the challenge of Judaizing the Negev and Galilee. Through legislation. I will not beg officials and legal advisers.”Smotrich said he wants to bring what he described as the settlement “revolution” in the West Bank to the Negev in southern Israel and the Galilee in the north. He did not provide a precise price tag for the program, saying it would build on plans that already exist.To carry it out, Religious Zionism would demand control in the next government of the Planning Administration and the Israel Land Authority, the state bodies that play central roles in planning, development and management of most of Israel’s land.The party says it would change legislation, remove regulatory barriers, accelerate planning and land tenders and place officials with what it describes as a Zionist and national outlook in key positions.“Sorry for being radical, but we are going to steamroll procedures and people to allow farms to be established,” Smotrich said. “We need to do this faster and more forcefully.”He accused state planning authorities of pursuing what he called a “post-Zionist” policy over the past two decades, arguing that large development plans for Arab communities, particularly in the Galilee, had enabled disproportionate expansion and restricted the growth of nearby Jewish communities.“We will cancel all these plans that create continuous Arab settlement in the Galilee and choke the Jewish communities,” he said. “We will reverse the equation.”Asked whether he had already drawn up lists of officials he intended to remove under the proposed overhaul, Smotrich did not provide details.“We will remove post-Zionist and anti-Zionist elements who are leading Israel toward the abyss, and put in people who came to implement policy,” he said. “At the same time, we will work to cancel the reckless plans approved in recent years for Arab communities, which took over large land reserves and threaten the ability to develop and expand Jewish settlement in the region.”A major section of Smotrich’s program also focuses on crime, illegal weapons and state authority in Arab communities.Citing what he described as a security review by the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, Smotrich said authorities estimate there are 1 million illegal weapons in Arab society. He called for involving the Shin Bet in efforts to combat illegal weapons in the Negev and northern Israel and for temporary emergency legislation that would give authorities unusually broad powers.Under his proposal, possession of an illegal weapon would be treated as a terrorism offense.“We have to dismantle the armed Arab autonomy, whether in Bir Hadaj or Tuba-Zangariyye,” Smotrich said, referring to two Arab communities. “There needs to be a temporary order defining possession of illegal weapons as terrorism. An illegal weapon in your home or your car? Ten years in prison.”He acknowledged that the proposed measures would be severe.“It will be draconian,” he said. “The entire criminal process, rules of procedure and rules of evidence — when you are at war and confronting terrorism, you cannot operate with those tools.”Smotrich estimated that constructing a prison facility for the additional detainees expected under the plan would cost about 1.2 billion shekels.“There is a system here that is abandoning the citizens of Israel,” he said. “The system has completely failed.”He linked the proposal to the governing coalition’s broader effort to overhaul Israel’s judiciary, saying Religious Zionism lawmaker Simcha Rothman had advanced the effort “law by law” and that it should be completed in the next parliamentary term.“We need to appoint good judges,” Smotrich said. “If we win, there will be good judges, we will develop these areas, and if the left appoints judges, the Arabs will continue to take over.”