Smotrich Says Israel Should Go to War in Judea and Samaria and Dismantle the PA

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who chairs Religious Zionism, said in an interview published Sunday that Israel should "go to war in Judea and Samaria," do there what it did in Gaza and dismantle the Palestinian Authority, which he called a "terror authority." Asked about defense officials' warnings that the area could explode, he said he had told them in the cabinet to propose solutions instead of "meaningless warnings." He said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made many mistakes that he tried to minimize. Smotrich called Ofer Winter's separate run irresponsible, putting at 99.9% the chance that the former IDF commander misses the electoral threshold.