Bezalel Smotrich
WSJ, Dec. 27, 2022
“… we seek to halt the execution of the Fayyad plan, a massive European Union-funded project to facilitate the Palestinian takeover of Area C, the one part of Judea and Samaria where Jews are currently permitted to live under the Oslo Accords.”
The U.S. media has vilified me and the traditionalist bloc to which I belong since our success in Israel’s November elections. They say I am a right-wing extremist and that our bloc will usher in a “halachic state” in which Jewish law governs. In reality, we seek to strengthen every citizen’s freedoms and the country’s democratic institutions, bringing Israel more closely in line with the liberal American model.
Israel is a Jewish and democratic state and will remain so. After five elections in less than five years and suffering the rule of a weak and fractious coalition dependent on a radical Islamist party’s backing for a year and a half, the country has finally formed a popular and stable government. Our bloc will strengthen Israel in the face of radical Islam and its terror proxies, open the country up economically, and usher in growth and prosperity for the benefit of all citizens.
As finance minister, I will pursue a broad free-market policy. This includes removing the government price controls and import restrictions that have limited competition and kept consumer prices high, as well as regulatory reforms and a loosening of bureaucratic control over small businesses. Inspired by U.S. right-to-work laws, we will pursue similar measures to reduce union control in Israel’s labor force.
On matters of religion and state, the new government will never seek to impose anything on a citizen that goes against his or her beliefs. We wish only to increase the freedom of religious people to participate in the public sphere in accordance with their faith, without coercion on secular people. For example, arranging for a minuscule number of sex-separated beaches, as we propose, scarcely limits the choices of the majority of Israelis who prefer mixed beaches. It simply offers an option to others. .. [To read the full article, click here]
