The price that Prime Minister Naftali Benett paid to maintain his coalition via bribery to the Islamist Ra’am party was revealed in a Yisrael Hayom report on Monday morning.
The prime minister promised Ra’am tens of millions of shekels of additional funding to the Jisr az-Zarqa Regional Council to keep the Ra’am party in the coalition.
Jisr az-Zarqa may be familiar to some readers as the name of the northern Israeli-Arab town from where rioters threw rocks and other objects at Highway 2 during Operation Guardian of the Walls a year ago, forcing police to close the area to traffic.
According to the report, during talks with Ra’am last week, party chairman Mansour Abbas demanded tens of millions of shekels in additional funding beyond what was agreed upon in the original coalition agreements.
In addition to the increased funding, Ra’am announced on Sunday evening that the coalition approved the construction of new homes and the expansion of existing homes in unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev. The coalition also approved a change in government policy prohibiting the demolition of existing illegal structures.
In response to the reports, the Likud party stated: “In order to maintain his position, Bennett continues with the liquidation sale of the State to the Shura Council. The significance of the decision to allow and approve unlimited illegal construction is the final transfer of the Negev.”
Religious Zionism Party chairman Betzalel Smotrich stated: “As expected, Ayelet Shaked was the first to fold and finance terrorism and crime without any of the oversight mechanisms she promised to whitewash illegal construction by the Bedouins and allow them to take over more and more land. We won’t forget and we won’t forgive.”
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