The Jim Crow policies of Israel’s radical finance minister

The ongoing demonstrations in Israel to protest against the government’s efforts to overhaul — and undermine — the authority of the country’s Supreme Court have captured worldwide attention. It is noteworthy that until very recently, those protests were not directed against the treatment of Israel’s Arab population, either in the West Bank or inside the so-called “Green Line” that marked the state’s boundaries prior to the 1967 Six Day War.

Yet even before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves ahead with the next elements of his plan to take power from the Supreme Court, his government is taking punitive steps against its Arab citizens, as well as those on the West Bank, that would further undermine the country’s claim to be a democratic state.

Earlier this week, Bezalel Smotrich, the racist leader of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, who doubles as finance minister and as a minister within the defense ministry, announced a $54 million cut to grants that the previous government had approved to support struggling Israeli Arab municipalities, which are suffering from high crime and gang warfare. Smotrich also introduced major changes to the five-year plan for East Jerusalem’s Arab population that Netanyahu’s previous government had approved in 2018.

The finance minister announced that he was freezing $680 million that had been earmarked for development projects in East Jerusalem, arguing that a portion of those funds were dedicated to supporting a preparatory program for Arab students at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University as well as educational programs at other schools in that part of the city. These programs had been approved by a previous Netanyahu government in 2018; the Hebrew University program in particular enabled Israeli Arabs to continue their studies at one of the country’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning.

In reality, the 2018 plan generally had done precious few favors for the Israeli Arab community. For example, it ignored the housing shortage in East Jerusalem, due in no small part to the dearth of building permits. Nevertheless, its approval of the Hebrew University’s preparatory program opened up prospects for Arab students to move on to well-paying jobs after graduation. It also gave Arab students an option other than to study at Arab institutions such as Birzeit University, which did not offer them the same opportunities in Israel once they graduated.

In this regard, the 2018 plan was similar to American efforts to offer Black students the ability to attend previously segregated Southern colleges and universities in addition to historically Black institutions.

Smotrich argued in a Facebook post that he certainly supported funding for programs in the eastern part of the city. On the other hand, he wished to give priority in the Hebrew University preparatory program to Jewish students, including overseas Jewish students and soldiers whose parents lived overseas, before offering any assistance to young Arabs. He accused the university of doing just the opposite by prioritizing admission for Arab students.

Smotrich also asserted that Arab students in the preparatory program were highly radicalized and participated in demonstrations on behalf of Hamas and in support of “freeing [the] al Aqsa” mosque. What he did not mention was that Hebrew University has for many years been a hotbed of left-wing politics among both faculty and students, including its many Arab students, who currently bitterly oppose the policies of Netanyahu and his neo-fascist colleagues.

Smotrich’s plans unleashed a barrage of criticism, even from some members of Netanyahu’s Likud party. The finance minister has been unapologetic. He justified his actions by pointing out that the people elected a right-wing nationalist government to pursue policies that would differ from those of its left-wing predecessor, and later insisted that he would not be swayed by criticism of his plan.

It is not for the United States to tell the Israeli finance minister how to prepare his budgets. But Washington cannot be expected to support policies that are anathema to the vast majority of the American public. Senior Biden administration officials, led by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, rightly refused to meet with Smotrich when he visited Washington earlier this spring.

That is not enough. Given Smotrich’s blatant discrimination against his country’s Arab citizens, which he claims has Netanyahu’s support, the Biden administration should make it clear to Netanyahu that it cannot be expected to continue its efforts to support his goal of convincing an increasingly reluctant Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords. No leading administration officials should follow up on the trips Riyadh that both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan recently undertook in order to discuss the Kingdom’s demands for security guarantees and support for a nuclear program in exchange for joining the Accords. Nor should the administration appoint a new special envoy for the Abraham Accords until Smotrich withdraws his budget plans.

Smotrich seems indifferent to the reality that his budget proposals most closely resemble the American Jim Crow legislation that prevailed in the South from the end of Reconstruction into the second half of the 20th century. Washington cannot share his indifference. There is nothing religious about the Religious Zionist leader’s policies; they are nothing less than repulsive. It is high time Netanyahu reversed them, even if, to maintain his coalition, he cannot fire his finance minister. By all rights and as a matter of common decency, however, that is exactly what he should do.

Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.