Smotrich announces plan to judaise Negev and Galilee

Smotrich announces plan to judaise Negev and Galilee Submitted by Nadav Rapaport on Fri, 08/28/2026 - 14:53 Israeli finance minister vows to replicate his West Bank settlement expansion Bedouin look on as a family demolish their home after the Israeli authorities served demolition notices, ordering the owners to tear down their own premises or face being charged a hefty fee for the state to do it, in an al-Sir, a Bedouin village in the Negev, 16 June 2026 (AFP) Off Israel 's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced a new plan to judaise the Negev, or Naqab in Arabic, and the Galilee, vowing to replicate in Israel policies that he has pursued in the occupied West Bank. "Today I am presenting to you the Religious Zionism plan for the judaisation of the Negev and Galilee," Smotrich said on X on Thursday. The Negev and Galilee are in the southern and northern parts of Israel and are home to the majority of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Smotrich said that the settlement expansion he has led in the West Bank in the past four years, would be repeated "on a massive scale" in the Negev and the Galilee as well. "The goal: one million additional Jews in the Negev and Galilee, 40 new communities, dozens of farms, expansion of existing communities, and hundreds of thousands of housing solutions," he said. The far-right minister also vowed to "cancel the reckless plans in the Arab communities, which have seized land reserves and threaten Jewish settlement in the area". "After the revolution in Judea and Samaria," Smotrich said, using the Jewish name for the West Bank, "it's now the turn of the Negev and Galilee. Yes, we are judaising." 'Trample over people' Smotrich regularly prides himself as the minister who led a "revolution" in the West Bank, seizing vast amounts of Palestinian land and establishing dozens of new settlements and outposts. The Israeli land grab has been widely criticised as de facto annexation. After the upcoming elections, he said, his party will demand control over two powerful Israeli land planning agencies. "We are going to trample over procedures and people in order to allow the farms to be established," he added. According to Smotrich's plan, "anti-Zionist and post-Zionist elements" in Israel's land agencies will be removed and plans that "are strangling the Jewish communities" will be cancelled. Israel's destruction of Umm al-Hiran: A Palestinian village erased Read More » "We are replicating the revolution," the plan said, adding that in the West Bank "we proved that determined policy can change the reality on the ground". "Now we are taking that same operational approach to the Negev and Galilee." The plan deals with three main aspects: land, people and security. "More land holding, more residents, more security," the plan states, would lead to "a strong and thriving Negev and Galilee". The plan warns that "a land that we do not hold, Arabs will hold", encouraging Israeli Jewish settlements at the expense of Palestinian residents. It also calls for a crackdown on Palestinian crime organisations in order "to dismantle the armed Arab autonomy". Since 2022, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government took power, crime-related murders in Palestinian communities in Israel have skyrocketed. A young Palestinian man was shot dead in a crime-related incident in Jaffa on Thursday night. He was among 161 Palestinian victims of a crime-related incident in Israel so far in 2026. 'An apartheid plan' While Smotrich introduced his new plan this week, the notion of judaising the Negev and Galilee is not new in Israel's history, with past governments having sought to do the same. In 1976, plans to judaise the Galilee by Yitzhak Rabin's government led to widespread protests in Palestinian communities in northern Israel. A violent Israeli crackdown on the demonstrators killed six Palestinians on 30 March 1976, a day that Palestinians have since commemorated as Land Day. Judaising the Negev and Galilee has also been a key part of the current government’s policies, with Orit Strook, a member of Smotrich’s party and the settlement minister, leading the efforts. ‘My land is forbidden to me’: Israel’s settlement push encircles Jenin Read More » Earlier this month, Strook said that one of her greatest achievements was "halting the Islamic conquest of the Galilee". Under Strook's leadership, large amounts of funds were transferred to encourage Jewish settlements in the Negev and Galilee, with the Ministry of Settlements allocating millions of shekels for her judaising policies. Israeli official data puts the Palestinian population at around 740,000 in the Galilee and 200,000 in the Negev as of 2023. The actual figure in the Negev is closer to 300,000, however, as Israel does not recognise Bedouin villages in the region. Official figures show that Palestinians make up about 50 percent of the population in the Galilee and around 30 percent in the Negev. Yousef Jabareen, leader of the left-wing Hadash party and head of the newly formed Palestinian Joint List, said that "racist minister Smotrich's plan to judaise the Negev and Galilee is essentially an apartheid plan". "Arab citizens will not accept the status of second-class or third-class citizens," Jabareen said, vowing to thwart Smotrich's plan in the upcoming elections. Occupation Tel Aviv News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0