In an extraordinary letter, the chairman of Religious Zionism addressed the government officials related to the transfer of funds within the framework of the agreements between RAAM and MK Zoabi and the coalition parties and warned them that the transfer was contrary to the recommendations of the inter-ministerial tender team appointed by Deputy Interior Minister Yoav Saglovich. And that the funds may for the most part find their way from the Arab authorities to terrorism and crime.
In the letter, Smutrich addressed the legal advisers and budget advisers, headed by the Attorney General, Gali Bahar Rabbi Miara, and Interior Ministry officials, including the ministry's director general Yair Hirsch and the budget department, and warned of their responsibility for the transfer of funds.
Smutrich demanded that senior officials prevent the transfer of funds without the necessary operating and supervisory mechanisms and even warned of a future commission of inquiry that would examine how the State of Israel knowingly funded terrorism and crime for political reasons.
In the letter, he claimed: "In recent days you have been involved in dangerous and improper political moves, resulting in surrender to political blackmail, and include transfers of hundreds of millions of shekels to the Arab authorities, without the necessary operating and monitoring mechanisms to ensure the funds are used for terrorism and crime."
"All the competent authorities, including you, have raised this concern, and in its wake the inter-ministerial tender team set up by the Deputy Minister of Internal Security, which coordinates the government's fight to eradicate crime in the Arab sector. The team published its recommendations this month Alternate implementation and supervision to local authorities, in a way that will prevent the transfer of funds to terrorism and crime.
"Precisely for this reason, parts of Government Resolution No. 550 (the five-year plan for the Arab sector) have so far been delayed, and the transfer of funds has been delayed until the said mechanisms are established and the funds transferred through them. It is scandalous to transfer the funds immediately and in cash directly to the Arab authorities without the mechanisms recommended by the team, and in a way that raises a real fear of leaking a large part of the budgets to terrorism and crime.
"As people who are used to seeing themselves as 'gatekeepers', you are not exempt from responsibility for it, and your silence and the active assistance you provide to this promiscuous transfer of funds makes you partners and those who bear direct responsibility for some of the money reaching terrorism and crime and its consequences.
The commission of inquiry that will be set up upon the return of the national camp to power will not absolve anyone of their personal responsibility for this.
I call on you to exercise your responsibilities and powers, and to insist that no shekel will be transferred without the implementation of all the mechanisms recommended by the tender team and will not feed the wheels of terrorism and crime. "
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