Editorial |
Israel's Path to National Suicide
The government of pillage is pushing on with its sell-off of the state. The coalition of the ultra-nationalists and the Haredim forgoes requiring ultra-Orthodox schools to teach core subjects and at the same time advances what Bezalel Smotrich calls “core missions.”
Smotrich, who is the finance minister and a minister in the Defense Ministry, ordered all relevant government ministries to prepare for the absorption of an additional half- million settlers in the West Bank within two years. He calls this bizarre plan, which will eliminate any possibility of territorial compromise and peace with the Palestinians, once and for all, and bring the wrath of the international community upon Israel, a core mission of the government.
Doubling the number of settlers, as Smotrich proposes to do, requires infrastructure work. He ordered the improvement of infrastructure for all types of Jewish settlements in the territories, large and small, those the State of Israel – and only the State of Israel – considers legal as well as illegal outposts. This includes the areas of public transportation, education, employment – everything that is needed.
In any case the government plans to legalize the illegal outposts in the months to come.
Jurists say efforts to implement the plan will face immediate challenges in the High Court of Justice, which is unlikely to approve it in its current form. But who knows whether the court will survive until then in its current form. The judicial coup has not yet been shelved. And who will pay for all this plenty?
The estimated cost of the plan runs into the billions. The draft budget for 2023 and 2024, the time frame proposed by Smotrich for his program, does contain funding for construction and for new infrastructure in settlements, but in a much smaller scope than what is needed to handle the population increase that he envisions. Money isn’t a problem, Smotrich said, promising to come up with funding sources. From where, exactly? Perhaps he’s counting on the help of God.
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And who will provide the security for the hundreds of thousands of new settlers?
The defense establishment has not received enough information to draw up an opinion on it. When they do so, they are expected to object to much of it, particularly those parts involving unauthorized settlements in locations with a high potential for friction with Palestinians. But what do such trifles have to do with Smotrich’s messianic project? The military and Israelis living inside the Green Line who just want a normal life are all Messiah’s donkeys.
The government coup is part of a messianic political program that seeks to annex the territories and distort the founding values of Israeli society and the state. The Israeli donkey must shake off its burden and intensify its resistance and the international community must wake up.
Together, we must stop this insanity.
The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.
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