Washington, DC – Today, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich openly called for Israel to officially annex roughly 82 percent of the occupied West Bank – a move that would shatter Israel’s democracy, push it deeper into pariah status and implode prospects for peace and regional integration. J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami issued the following statement:
“Smotrich continues to drive Israel off a cliff. Every day, he seeks to remake Israel into something unrecognizable to those of us who cherish it as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people.
As the settlement movement itself has said, annexation has nothing to do with security and everything to do with preventing self-determination for Palestinians and locking in permanent, undemocratic Israeli control over Palestinian land and the millions who live there. They envision a permanent military occupation with generations of young Israelis sent to defend illegal settlements and annexed territory while pushing Palestinians from their homes and into ever smaller and smaller enclaves.
The Smotrich vision undermines the US-Israel relationship, detonates any chance of further regional integration and alienates Israel further from the Jewish diaspora and supporters of liberal democracy abroad.
Pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy leaders in Congress and our community must speak out against this plan – and the strongest way to slam the door shut on far-right annexationist fantasies is to recognize Palestinian people’s right to statehood now, before it’s too late.”