June 24, 2024- As the New York Times reports, Israeli Finance Minister and settler leader Bezalel Smotrich is well on his way to achieving his goal: annexation of the West Bank. On May 29, the IDF’s website noted that enforcement of several key laws governing the West Bank had been transferred from military to civilian authority, under Smotrich’s direction in his other role as a senior official in the Defense Ministry. He has proposed four new West Bank settlements and attempted to impose sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, all in retaliation for other nations’ formal recognition of Palestine. APN’s sister organization in Israel, Peace Now, was responsible for making a recording of Smotrich’s remarks available to the media.

Americans for Peace Now warns that annexation of the West Bank is no longer a settler pipe dream, but a reality occurring while the world’s attention is focused on the war in Gaza.  Transferring powers from the military to civilian control amounts to legal annexation under international law, and makes a mockery of American policy supporting a two-state solution. Smotrich makes no secret of his intentions to “change the system’s DNA” and smash any possibility of Palestinian autonomy or statehood in the West Bank for once and for all.

“No-one in Israel is under any illusions about Smotrich’s agenda,” said APN President and CEO Hadar Susskind. “Now that the Biden administration has begun sanctioning violent settlers, as well as investigating the American sources of their funding, it is time to send a strong message to the Israeli government that building more settlements and usurping more power in the West Bank is unacceptable. Sanctioning Smotrich himself would be an excellent first step in delegitimizing a government exercising illegal means towards permanent control of the West Bank.”