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Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has claimed that the Galilee and Negev regions, where many Palestinian citizens of Israel live, have been “occupied,” and vowed to expand West Bank-style land policies to Arab-majority areas as part of his election campaign.
Smotrich, who leads the Religious Zionism Party, said he would “carry” policies implemented in the occupied West Bank to the Galilee in northern Israel and the Negev in the south, pledging to “Judaize” the areas.
The party said in a short AI-generated video shared on social media that it would launch a new “Judaization and settlement plan” for both regions.
The advertisement, shared with the slogan “Ahmed is right to be afraid,” shows a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank calling a Palestinian citizen of Israel and saying: “Smotrich is coming to do to you the same thing he did to us.”
“He will seize lands, establish towns and farms; everything is now lost for us,” the Palestinian says in the video.
At a news conference on the campaign, Smotrich claimed that Palestinian citizens of Israel, also known as 1948 Arabs, had “occupied the Galilee region in the north and the Negev region in the south,” despite holding Israeli citizenship.
He said he would launch a plan to “Judaize” Arab-majority areas on Israel’s periphery.
Smotrich said he would carry out in the Galilee and Negev what he had done in the occupied West Bank.
He attributed the increase in the Palestinian population in the regions to what he called “the policies of the Construction and Planning Administration that abandoned Zionist ideals.”
Accusing officials at the institution of being anti-Zionist, Smotrich said they would be dismissed and replaced with new officials who would implement “Jewish settlement plans.”
Asked why he had not implemented the plan during the current government’s term, Smotrich pointed to the West Bank.
“But I did this in the West Bank,” he said.
Smotrich holds broad powers in the occupied West Bank through ministerial-level authority within Israel’s Defense Ministry.
He has pushed to significantly accelerate settlement expansion in the occupied territory, including in East Jerusalem.
His efforts include advancing the illegal E1 settlement project, granting unilateral legal status under Israeli law to unauthorized outposts and reestablishing West Bank settlements evacuated during Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.
From the formation of the current Israeli government in 2022 until April 2026, 103 new illegal settlements were established on lands seized from Palestinians or retroactively granted unilateral legal status by Israel.
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