Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Quiet Administrative Change Advances Far-Right Israeli Minister’s Effort to Control West Bank
d8a347b41db1ddee634e2d67d08798c102ef09ac
By The New York Times
Published 10 months ago on
June 20, 2024

New buildings at the Israeli settlement of Eli in the West Bank, on Dec. 22, 2023. (Avishag Shaar-Yashuv/The New York Times)

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Israel is putting key responsibilities in the occupied West Bank under an administrator who answers to a hard-line government minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who favors annexation of the territory, in what analysts and human rights activists describe as the latest step toward the far right’s aim of expanding Israeli settlements there.

Move Was Longtime Goal of Smotrich

The administrative move has been a longtime goal of Smotrich, the finance minister and settler leader, and increases his formal authority over many areas of civilian life, including building and demolition permits, a crucial tool for settlers who view construction as a way to strengthen their grip on the West Bank.

It is the latest of several changes over the past two years that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history, has made to the way that the West Bank is ruled. Since early 2023, the government has eased the planning process for new settlements and gradually transferred more powers from the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, to Smotrich, a longtime settler activist who wants to prevent the possibility of creating a Palestinian state in the territory.

The moves stop short of fully placing the West Bank under civilian control, and they have limited effect in the 40% of the West Bank that is administered by the Palestinian Authority, a semi-autonomous Palestinian-run body. But critics say that they collectively take Israel a step closer to annexing the territory in all but name.

Israel Defended its Control of the Territory for Decades

For decades, Israel has defended its control of the territory there by saying that it is a temporary military occupation since the 1967 war that complies with the international laws applicable to occupied territories, rather than a permanent annexation that places the West Bank under the sovereign control of Israel’s civilian authorities. But the empowerment of Smotrich, a civilian minister, tests that argument to its limits.

The latest move, which creates a civilian head of an area previously overseen only by the military, was finalized by the Israeli military on May 29, according to copies of two military orders seen by The New York Times. It names a deputy head of the civil administration in the West Bank who will answer to Smotrich, an ultranationalist member of Netanyahu’s coalition who has a broad portfolio in the West Bank.

Settlers like Smotrich want to build more Israeli settlements across the West Bank on land that Palestinians hoped would be the core of a future Palestinian state. While previous Israeli governments and generals have built and protected hundreds of settlements, the latest order would likely accelerate that process, analysts and activists said.

Critics have already accused the government of failing to clamp down on illegal settlement construction and violence committed by settlers, and of thwarting measures to enforce the law.

Near-Daily Raid in the Territory

Since the war began in October, the government has cracked down on the territory with near-daily military raids it says are aimed at terrorists. The government has also emboldened settlers and enacted new regulations that have put additional economic pressure on Palestinians.

“We are speaking about a change with a very clear political dimension to permit all kinds of plans for building settlements very quickly and without any obstacles,” said Michael Milshtein, an author and expert in Palestinian studies at Tel Aviv University.

The military has for decades been responsible for civil administration in most of the West Bank as well as for security, and critics say the shift to civilian administration, a long-standing aim of Smotrich, ties decision-making more closely to Israeli domestic politics. Analysts noted, however, that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant would retain input and could block certain measures.

Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at Ir Amim, an Israeli nongovernmental organization, said that the order was “historic” because “for the first time you have in a formal way management in the West Bank that is not done through the army but through the Israeli civil political system.”

Civilian Political Influence Over Military Grows

The civilian political influence over the military administration already existed to some extent, though it was hidden from view, he said, “but now it’s stopped playing the games.”

A spokesperson for Smotrich did not respond to a request for comment.

The person named to fill the new administrative post, Hillel Roth, is a settler and a member of the religious nationalist community who will likely act to facilitate Smotrich’s agenda, analysts said.

Milshtein noted that Smotrich had separately aimed to weaken the Palestinian Authority, which administers some parts of the West Bank. Smotrich announced in May that Israel would withhold revenue from the authority, worsening its severe fiscal crisis. In June, Smotrich said that he had ordered about $35 million in tax revenue that Israel collected on behalf of the authority to be diverted to the families of Israeli victims of terrorism.

Since Israel occupied the West Bank, previously controlled by Jordan, in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the government has encouraged Jews to settle there, providing land, military protection, electricity, water and roads. More than 500,000 settlers now live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the territory.

Most of the world considers the settlements illegal. Some Israeli Jews justify settlement on religious grounds, others on the basis of history — both ancient and modern — while some say Israel must control the territory to prevent armed Palestinian groups from taking power.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Matthew Mpoke Bigg/Avishag Shaar-Yashuv
c.2024 The New York Times Company
Distributed by The New York Times Licensing Group

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

California Senator Will Make Historic Appearance at Fresno City College Commencement

DON'T MISS

Gaza Ceasefire Talks in Cairo Near ‘Significant Breakthrough,’ Two Security Sources Say

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Farmer Sentenced to Prison in $650,000 Crop Insurance Fraud Case

DON'T MISS

Where Were the Most Car Crashes in Clovis? Police Release List

DON'T MISS

Protesters to Rally in Brooklyn After Pro-Israel Crowd Assaults Woman

DON'T MISS

Selma Teen’s Death May Be Tied to Fentanyl, Police Say

DON'T MISS

Blast Kills at Least 26 People in Nigeria’s Northeast, Residents Say

DON'T MISS

5-Year-Old Girl and Parents Among Those Dead in Vehicle Ramming in Vancouver

DON'T MISS

Feds Again Bump Up Water Allocation for Many Fresno County Farmers

DON'T MISS

Levi Strauss Shareholders Vote Against Proposal to End Diversity Programs

UP NEXT

Blast Kills at Least 26 People in Nigeria’s Northeast, Residents Say

UP NEXT

5-Year-Old Girl and Parents Among Those Dead in Vehicle Ramming in Vancouver

UP NEXT

Death Toll in Iran’s Bandar Abbas Port Blast Rises to 70

UP NEXT

Iran Proposes Meeting With Europeans Before Next Talks With US, Diplomats Say

UP NEXT

Saudi Arabia and Qatar to Pay Off Syria’s Debt to the World Bank

UP NEXT

Pakistan Defense Minister Says Military Incursion by India Is Imminent

UP NEXT

Huge Power Outage Paralyzes Parts of Spain and Portugal

UP NEXT

US Sanctions Target Deliveries of Oil and Gas to Houthis

UP NEXT

Putin Orders 3-Day Truce in Ukraine Next Month, Kremlin Says

UP NEXT

Suspected US Airstrike Hits Yemen Migrant Centre; Houthi TV Says 68 Killed

Where Were the Most Car Crashes in Clovis? Police Release List

10 hours ago

Protesters to Rally in Brooklyn After Pro-Israel Crowd Assaults Woman

11 hours ago

Selma Teen’s Death May Be Tied to Fentanyl, Police Say

11 hours ago

Blast Kills at Least 26 People in Nigeria’s Northeast, Residents Say

11 hours ago

5-Year-Old Girl and Parents Among Those Dead in Vehicle Ramming in Vancouver

12 hours ago

Feds Again Bump Up Water Allocation for Many Fresno County Farmers

12 hours ago

Levi Strauss Shareholders Vote Against Proposal to End Diversity Programs

12 hours ago

US and Mexico Have Reached Agreement on New World Screwworm, Ag Secretary Rollins Says

13 hours ago

Death Toll in Iran’s Bandar Abbas Port Blast Rises to 70

13 hours ago

Selma Mayor Responds to Criminal Charge

13 hours ago

California Senator Will Make Historic Appearance at Fresno City College Commencement

For the first time in Fresno City College’s 115-year history, a United States senator will speak at its commencement ceremony. California De...

10 hours ago

10 hours ago

California Senator Will Make Historic Appearance at Fresno City College Commencement

Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip April 28, 2025. (REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa)
10 hours ago

Gaza Ceasefire Talks in Cairo Near ‘Significant Breakthrough,’ Two Security Sources Say

10 hours ago

Fresno County Farmer Sentenced to Prison in $650,000 Crop Insurance Fraud Case

10 hours ago

Where Were the Most Car Crashes in Clovis? Police Release List

Officers with the New York Police Department outside the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, on Monday, April 28, 2025. The Police Department said it was preparing for new protests in Brooklyn on Monday after a woman was verbally and physically assaulted by hundreds of pro-Israel demonstrators there last week. (Victor J. Blue/The New York Times)
11 hours ago

Protesters to Rally in Brooklyn After Pro-Israel Crowd Assaults Woman

11 hours ago

Selma Teen’s Death May Be Tied to Fentanyl, Police Say

At least 26 people were killed and three injured on Monday when two vehicles struck an improvised explosive device in Nigeria’s insurgency-hit Borno state, an attack residents blamed on Boko Haram. (Shutterstock)
11 hours ago

Blast Kills at Least 26 People in Nigeria’s Northeast, Residents Say

Visitors pay their respects at a memorial after a vehicle drove into a crowd during a Filipino heritage festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sunday, April 27, 2025. (AP/Lindsey Wasson)
12 hours ago

5-Year-Old Girl and Parents Among Those Dead in Vehicle Ramming in Vancouver

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend