Hundreds of protesters from the Brothers in Arms group of reservists opposed to the government’s judicial overhaul demonstrated on Thursday outside the home of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim.
“We arrived in protest of the fact that security in Israel and the West Bank is at an unprecedented low, and to remind the failing minister of the commandments he abandoned in favor of his efforts to promote a Kahanist, racist agenda of Jewish supremacy,” said a statement from group.
In reference to the Ten Commandments, demonstrators brought plaques with text reading “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not covet” as well as “Respect the LGBT” and “Thou shalt not be racist.”
“Smotrich has uprooted [Defense Minister Yoav] Gallant from the Defense Ministry and is serving in a role that is too big for him,” the statement continued, referring to the finance minister’s additional role as a minister in the Defense Ministry in charge of settlement issues.
“He is advancing his ‘decisive plan’ to create a state only for Jews, he is supporting the Huwara militias, and abandoning IDF soldiers in the Hague,” the statement added, alluding to Smotrich’s proposed solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and settler violence including a February riot in the Palestinian village of Huwara.
The claim of abandoning soldiers refers to the opposition’s assertion that weakening Israel’s courts will lead to greater involvement of the International Criminal Court, which largely stays out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict due to the strength of the Israeli judiciary.
Protests outside the homes of members of the government have been commonplace since the anti-overhaul movement began, although this is the first time demonstrators have made their way to the Religious Zionism leader’s home, which is far beyond the Green Line.
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In the wake of a string of recent terror attacks, Smotrich is reportedly pushing through a plan to expand West Bank settlements and legalize dozens of outposts.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich speaks at a press conference in Jerusalem on August 9, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
The plan is said to map out all of Israel’s illegal outposts beyond the Green Line, with the goal of eventually legalizing all of them. To legalize the outposts built on private Palestinian land, Smotrich aims either to have them transferred to state land or to apply alternative legal mechanisms that would allow them to remain in place, according to the report.
On Monday, Batsheva Nigri, 42, was killed when a vehicle she was in with her 12-year-old daughter came under fire from a passing car while driving on the Route 60 highway, close to the Beit Hagai junction, south of Hebron. The male driver was seriously wounded, while the girl escaped unscathed.
The military said it caught the suspects in Hebron early Tuesday morning.
The attack came two days after a Palestinian terrorist killed two Israeli men, a father and son, while they were doing errands in the northern West Bank town of Huwara. Shay Silas Nigreker, 60, and his 28-year-old son Aviad Nir were shot dead at a carwash on Saturday afternoon.
Violence has surged across the West Bank over the past year and a half, with a rise in Palestinian shooting attacks against Israeli civilians and troops, near-nightly arrest raids by the military, and an uptick in revenge attacks by extremist Jewish settlers against Palestinians.
The finance minister has also taken flak recently — including from other cabinet ministers — for refusing to release NIS 200 million ($55 million) for economic development in Arab towns and villages, drawing accusations of racism from opposition lawmakers.
