Infrastructures Minister Yosef Paritzky, of the anti-religious and largely left-wing Shinui party, says that the Galilee is more important than Judea and Samaria. Touring the Galilee today, Paritzky said that Israel's true national priorities lie in the Galilee and not in Yesha, and that funding should be transferred from the latter to the former. Making an innocuous call for 20,000 Jews to settle the Galilee, he also added that this would be more important than having them live "on the outskirts of Hevron or Jenin."
The Yesha Council called upon Shinui leader Justice Minister Tommy Lapid to stop his party's "campaign of incitement and hatred" against the residents of Yesha. "The people of Yesha have been hit harder than any other sector by the economic decrees," stated the Council, "because the government is investing billions into the partition wall and not even one shekel into protection for the Yesha communities."