Washington, DC – In response to a series of decisions by Israel’s security cabinet that expand Israel’s control over the entire West Bank and dismantle protections for Palestinian land, J Street Senior Vice President and Chief Policy Officer Ilan Goldenberg issued the following statement:
“We strongly condemn the Israeli Security Cabinet’s decisions to dramatically escalate Israel’s takeover of the West Bank. This move further strips Palestinians of control over their own land and is a direct violation of Israel’s international commitments.
By extending Israeli enforcement authority to areas that Palestinians have governed for decades, the cabinet’s decisions grant Smotrich and his far-right allies the power to demolish homes and displace Palestinians across the entire West Bank. This is another dangerous step toward full annexation that undermines the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
The cabinet decisions also lifted key safeguards that protected Palestinian landowners from fraudulent land sales. Removing these protections creates conditions for coercive sales, further land theft and the accelerated displacement of Palestinians from their homes.
Finance Minister Smotrich’s declaration that he will ‘continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state,’ and Energy Minister Eli Cohen’s description of the decision as ‘de facto sovereignty,’ make clear that this is not merely a bureaucratic step. It is a significant escalation of the Netanyahu government’s policy of annexing the West Bank.
This is ultimately a continuation of Netanyahu’s policy of prioritizing his far-right coalition partners’ desire to control all of Greater Israel over the United States’ efforts to de-escalate tensions and work toward a comprehensive regional agreement that establishes a Palestinian state alongside a secure, Jewish and democratic Israel.
We call on President Trump to use his meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu on Wednesday to press for the reversal of these decisions. And we call on the Israeli government to choose Israel’s security and its Jewish and democratic values over the extremist aspirations of its most far-right ministers.”