Bezalel Smotrich: freezing money for the Arab zone agreed with the head of presidency

Despite grievance and appeals from Interior Minister Moshe Arbel and Chairman of the Center for Local Power Chaim Bibas, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich maintains to insist on his choice to freeze the transfer of half a billion shekels to the needs of the Arab area.

At the identical time, Smotrich claims that his moves are coordinated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The head of presidency himself has not yet reacted to the crisis, regardless of requires him to intrude within the state of affairs.

Regarding the freezing of 200 million shekels for instructional programs for residents of the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, Smotrich stated that “looking to ensure that they do no longer visit observe at the Palestinian University in Bir Zeit, we were given Bir Zeit on the Hebrew University.”

Regarding the 300 million shekels for the desires of Arab municipalities, Smotrych stated that he did now not intend to “finance the coalition agreements of the previous authorities with the RAAM birthday party, and that if a specific municipality has problems, they will be resolved pointwise.”

Interior Minister Moshe Arbel has previously emphasized that this is approximately funds already blanketed within the budgets of municipalities, under which contracts have already been signed, and now not receiving this money will cause price range deficits and problems so one can nonetheless have to be solved, handiest extra steeply-priced.