Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has unveiled an election plan to dramatically expand the Jewish population of the Negev and Galilee, proposing 40 new communities, dozens of farms and hundreds of thousands of homes while seeking to cancel development plans in Arab localities.

Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, presented the programme on Thursday under the slogan “Yes. Judaizing!”, explicitly linking it to the settlement policies he has pursued in the occupied West Bank.

“Today I present to you the Religious Zionism’s plan for the Judaization of the Negev and Galilee,” Smotrich wrote on X. He said the “revolution” pursued in the West Bank would be extended to the two regions “on a massive scale”.

The plan sets a target of attracting one million additional Jewish residents to the Negev in southern Israel and the Galilee in the north. It calls for 20 new communities in each region, dozens of agricultural farms, major expansion of existing communities and hundreds of thousands of additional housing units.

Both regions have substantial Palestinian Arab populations. Arab citizens make up about 21% of Israel’s population, and many identify as Palestinian.

The proposal goes beyond building new Jewish communities. Religious Zionism says that in the next government it will demand control of the national Planning Administration and the Israel Land Authority, which manages most state-owned land, giving the party greater influence over planning and land allocation.

Smotrich’s party also says it would cancel planning schemes approved in recent years for Arab towns that it claims have consumed land reserves needed for Jewish development.

An Israeli account of the programme published by Israel Hayom said the party document calls for cancelling plans that create what it describes as “Arab territorial contiguity”. The document also states: “Land that we do not hold will be held by the Arabs.”

The programme would tighten enforcement against construction deemed illegal and what the party describes as the seizure of state land, while giving priority to Jewish settlement. It proposes financial incentives intended to attract soldiers, reservists, doctors, teachers, technology workers and new immigrants to the Negev and Galilee.

It also proposes new industrial and employment zones and measures to speed up planning and construction.

Smotrich has framed the project as an extension of policies he has pursued in the occupied West Bank, where he holds significant powers over settlements through an additional ministerial role in the Defence Ministry.

Under the current Israeli government, settlement construction and the retroactive recognition of previously unauthorised outposts have accelerated. The Times of Israel reported that 103 settlements had been established or retroactively legalised between the government taking office in 2022 and April 2026.

Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law by most of the international community. Israel disputes that position. The proposed Negev and Galilee communities, however, would be inside internationally recognised Israeli territory and therefore do not carry the same legal status as West Bank settlements.

Smotrich’s announcement was accompanied by an AI-generated campaign video released by Religious Zionism depicting two Arab men reacting in alarm to the plan.

The proposal was released exactly two months before Israel’s scheduled 27 October election and as Religious Zionism struggles in opinion polls. Recent polling has placed the party close to or below the electoral threshold required to enter the Knesset.

Smotrich has sought to make settlement expansion and control over land central to his political campaign. His latest programme explicitly proposes transferring the approach developed under his West Bank policies to the Negev and Galilee, where questions of housing, planning recognition and land ownership have long been major sources of tension between Israeli authorities and Palestinian Arab citizens.