Israel’s rightward shift did not happen in a vacuum. Refusing to understand it will only accelerate it.

Peter Lerner argues that Israel is currently governed by the most extreme coalition in its history. He is well within his rights to question this government’s conduct. Supporting Israel does not require supporting every decision made by its government. Israelis themselves criticise government policies daily, loudly and across the political spectrum.

But criticism must still represent the facts fairly.

Take E1. Lerner presents the government’s decision to move it towards construction as evidence of a coalition intent on creating irreversible realities. But E1 is not a policy invented by Bezalel Smotrich or by this government. Its origins stretch back to the Shamir government in 1991, while the planning basis for the present development was advanced under Rabin in 1994. Several subsequent Israeli governments retained, supported or advanced the proposal, although they repeatedly stopped short of residential construction amid international pressure and diplomatic concerns.

The present government has undoubtedly taken the plan further. E1 received final statutory approval in August 2025, tenders for 3,401 homes were issued that December, and further tenders were announced in August 2026. Lerner is therefore entitled to argue that moving from planning towards construction represents a significant change.

But it is misleading to discuss E1 primarily as evidence of this government’s uniquely extreme ideology without giving equal weight to its decades long history and the support its underlying strategic objective has received across Israeli politics.

There is another piece of context often absent from discussions of E1: the framework created by the Oslo Accords. Under Oslo II, Israel retained overall security authority and the planning and zoning powers that had not been transferred in Area C, while the Palestinian Authority assumed certain limited functional responsibilities. The agreement........

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