An Israeli minister has suggested that Palestinians should not have “national rights”, including the right over land and voting.
In an interview with the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli Minister of Settlements and National Missions Orit Strock outlined her plans to annex as much land as possible in the occupied West Bank under the incoming Trump administration, saying that Palestinians would have “full individual rights, not national rights”.
“My office is working at full throttle to ensure that if sovereignty [annexation] is applied, it will cover the maximum area possible,” she said.
When asked about what would be done to Palestinians living there, she said that “all people have human rights, though the national right over the land belongs solely to the people of Israel.”
“They can stay here, as human beings, of course, and to be a Jewish state, we should grant them full human rights in my view.”
Strock was questioned further about what rights Palestinians would be granted, she reiterated that “national rights over this land belong only to the Jewish people.”
“I think a model needs to be found, but they shouldn’t be able to vote for the Knesset [Israeli parliament], right? I don’t have a precise formula to give you at the moment. It’s a matter before us, and it needs discussion. One thing is clear: there must not be a Palestinian state.”
The far-right minister cemented her position that giving up any territory to Palestinians, as well as supporting the idea of a two-state solution, would bring “terror” instead of peace.
“The main lesson of 7 October is that anyone who thinks giving up territory will bring peace is wrong,” she said.
Regarding Gaza, Strock said the government should not bother with an exit strategy from the besieged Palestinian enclave as the goals of the war are clear: to neutralise Hamas’s military and organisational strength and ensure Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.
Strock stressed that achieving this will require a long-term presence in Gaza.
Since the start of the war on Gaza, relentless Israeli attacks have damaged or flattened more than half of Gaza’s buildings and civilian infrastructure, erased entire neighbourhoods, and left swathes of the Strip uninhabitable.
The Israeli military has also displaced over 90 percent of the population of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians and killed more than 43,700 people.
‘Time to apply sovereignty’
Israel’s settler leaders and far-right figures have welcomed Donald Trump’s victory in the election last week, particularly after the Biden administration imposed sanctions and asset freezes on settler groups and individuals involved in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Far-right politicians like Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who heads the Religious Zionism party that Strock is member of, have hailed Trump’s triumph, hoping he will give the green light for Israel to officially annex Palestinian territory captured in 1967.
Speaking at a meeting of his far-right party earlier this week, Smotrich said that Trump’s victory provided an “important opportunity” and that “the time has come to apply sovereignty” over the West Bank.
Smotrich said he had instructed Israeli authorities overseeing West Bank settlements “to begin professional and comprehensive staff work to prepare the necessary infrastructure” for extending sovereignty, according to a statement from his office.
Israel has already annexed East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights in unilateral moves that have never been accepted by the international community but were recognised by Washington during Trump’s first term in office.
At Monday’s meeting, Smotrich said he would push the government to get the incoming Trump administration to recognise the annexation of the entire West Bank.
During Trump’s 2017-2021 term as president, Israel seemed primed to announce it was annexing Area C, the part of the West Bank fully controlled by the Israeli military. However, those plans never came to fruition after intense international pressure and cold feet from Washington.
Smotrich has called for an aggressively expansionist Israeli policy and last month said the country should expand “little by little” until its borders reached Damascus.
