“Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signed a coalition agreement with Religious Zionism party leader Bezalel Smotrich that will give the far-right politician unprecedented authority over the policy on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and relations with the Palestinians,” Axios reports.
“Smotrich, a radical right-wing settler known for his Jewish supremacist rhetoric, supports the annexation of the West Bank and the expansion of settlements. He has also called for increasing the number of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian houses in the area of the West Bank that is not controlled by the Palestinian Authority, known as Area C.”
