By ainnbeen.blogspot.com | June 20, 2025
“Even if the government falls tomorrow, the system will endure.” — Bezalel Smotrich
As the world watched Gaza plunge into rubble and starvation, a different war was being waged — not with bombs and airstrikes, but with bulldozers, bills, and bureaucrats.
While headlines remained fixated on the livestreamed genocide in Gaza and escalating tensions with Iran, Israel completed the de facto annexation of the West Bank — not with a declaration, but with a spreadsheet.
And at the center of this silent conquest stands one man: Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s Finance Minister, settler ideologue, and the architect of a new apartheid regime.
🔥 A Strategy Years in the Making
Smotrich’s ambitions were never hidden. As early as 2017, he published his “Decisive Plan”, offering Palestinians three options: submit to Jewish rule, emigrate, or be eliminated.
In 2023, he gained dual authority over the Defense Ministry, allowing him to bypass the military chain of command. He immediately set up a new Settlement Administration, staffed it with ideological loyalists, and began redrawing the West Bank’s governance map—without oversight, without delay.
🏗️ The Bureaucratic Coup
The shift was systemic. Civilian settler officials now wield full authority over construction, zoning, and law enforcement in the West Bank. Military officers who once acted as weak checks were sidelined. Smotrich created a legal department inside the Defense Ministry tasked solely with legalizing illegal outposts and dismantling Palestinian presence through administrative tools.
In 2025 alone:
- Over 50,000 settlement units were approved — more than in the last five years combined.
- $1.9 billion was funneled into roads, utilities, and tax perks for settlers.
- A massive land registration drive was launched to reclassify undocumented Palestinian land as Israeli state property — a quiet act of mass dispossession.
⚔️ Settlers in Uniform, Pogroms on Demand
After October 7, the violence wasn’t just tolerated — it was institutionalized.
Thousands of settlers were drafted into “Regional Defense Battalions”, given M16s and uniforms, and unleashed on Palestinian villages. These armed civilians now:
- Expel entire communities
- Torch homes and uproot crops
- Beat and shoot residents
- Face zero legal consequences
Over 943 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October 2023 — including 196 children. Meanwhile, law enforcement against settler violence has virtually disappeared.
As Smotrich and National Security Minister Ben-Gvir escalated this war on civilians, the IDF sealed towns, blocked Palestinian workers from entering Israel, and enforced a lockdown on daily life. $373 million in monthly wages were lost. Over 60 entire communities were forcibly expelled.
🧱 Ethnic Cleansing by Spreadsheet
Smotrich's genius lies not only in open violence but in legal and administrative tools that make apartheid permanent:
- Outposts are legalized retroactively.
- Nature preservation and archaeological laws are invoked to demolish homes in Areas A and B, where Israel previously had no jurisdiction.
- The IDF raids towns like Sebastia under the guise of “protecting Jewish heritage.”
In May 2025, Smotrich initiated a formal land registration campaign — not to protect ownership but to seize land en masse. Any property not officially registered before 1968 — frozen by Israeli law — can now be claimed as “state land.” The PA’s land claims were declared invalid, and surveyors were blocked at gunpoint.
🏛️ Dissolving the Green Line — One Law at a Time
Several new laws are finalizing the West Bank’s absorption into Israel:
- The “Metropolitan Jerusalem” bill extends the city’s boundaries to include nearby settlements.
- Bills now allow settlers to buy land directly from Palestinians without military approval.
- Israeli civil law is being applied piece by piece to the West Bank, collapsing the legal distinction between occupied and sovereign land.
💰 Settler Incentives, Palestinian Collapse
Israel is luring even secular Jewish families into settlements with:
- Tax breaks
- Natural gas infrastructure
- Urban renewal incentives
This isn’t just ideological — it’s demographic engineering. The goal is clear: add 1 million new settlers to the West Bank.
Meanwhile, in June 2025, after Smotrich was sanctioned by five Western countries for inciting violence, he retaliated by canceling a key financial waiver, threatening to collapse the Palestinian economy — cutting salaries, trade, and basic services.
🕍 Faith Meets Fascism
For Smotrich, this isn’t just politics. It’s prophecy.
In the Bible, Gaza was a cursed enemy stronghold. Judea and Samaria — the West Bank — is holy inheritance. This theology isn’t metaphorical. It’s operational.
Smotrich openly describes his policies as “faith-based realism.” His Decisive Plan was not a hypothetical—it was a roadmap. And now, it's reality.
🇺🇸 U.S. Backing and Western Silence
Smotrich's confidence soared after Trump’s 2024 reelection, reportedly backed by $100 million from Miriam Adelson in return for annexation support.
He now enjoys warm ties with U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, who has declared: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian.”
The Biden administration briefly pushed back in 2023—shelving E1 construction plans—but after October 7, the West focused solely on Gaza and Hamas. The West Bank was handed over by default.
🌍 The Media Looked Away
International coverage continues to treat settler violence as “isolated flareups,” while the structural takeover of the West Bank proceeds beneath the radar.
Gaza gets the livestreamed genocide. The West Bank gets the silent cleansing—what one journalist called “annexation by spreadsheet.”
📌 Conclusion: A Regime Built to Outlast Its Builders
Annexation is no longer theoretical.
It is not pending.
It is complete.
What once masqueraded as “military occupation” is now a civilian settler regime, complete with tax pipelines, legal codes, armed militias, and international impunity.
Smotrich himself summed it up best:
“Even if the government falls tomorrow, the system will endure.”
It’s not just Gaza being dismantled.
It’s the entire map of Palestine—one checkpoint, one court ruling, one bulldozer at a time.
Source:
https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-annexation-of-the-west-bank-is-complete-nathaniel
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#Palestine #WestBank #Annexation #Smotrich #Gaza #HumanRights #Apartheid #SettlerColonialism #Zionism #Israel #Occupation #MiddleEast
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