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Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Monday vowed to annex Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank by 2025 and called Donald Trump’s return to power in the United States a “significant opportunity.”

Using the name of the West Bank in the Bible, the far-right minister said, “2025 will be the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria with God’s help.”

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. Palestinians claim the area is part of a future independent state and have repeatedly warned that Israeli settlements there pose an obstacle to peace.

Smotrich, whose ministerial portfolio also includes some working areas of the Ministry of Defense, said that he ordered preparations to be made for the “implementation of sovereignty” over Israeli settlements.

Speaking at a meeting in Parliament, he said he had “instructed the Director of Conciliation Affairs in the Ministry of Defense and Civil Administration … to prepare the necessary infrastructure to exercise sovereignty”.

Smotrich congratulated US President-elect Donald Trump on his “incredible and comprehensive victory”, which he said “brings a significant opportunity for the State of Israel as well”.

“President Trump led dramatic moves in his first term,” Smotrich said.

These included recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, breaking with much of the international community by moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, and brokering a series of normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries.

Before the normalization agreements, called the Abraham Accords, the Israeli government announced that it would annex large Israeli settlement blocks in the West Bank before canceling the plan when the agreements were announced.

“We were on the verge of exercising sovereignty over the settlements in Judea and Samaria,” Smotrich said.

“Now is the time to do it.”

He said he would push the government to work with the new US administration on this issue.

Earlier on Monday, Israel’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said a Palestinian state was “unrealistic” after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reiterated his demand for a “sovereign” country.

“I don’t think this position is realistic today and we have to be realistic,” Saar told reporters. he said.

The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned Saar’s remarks as “an extension of the war of destruction and displacement waged against our people.”

It was also stated that the comments “ignored international legitimacy and the international consensus on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, is home to three million Palestinians as well as approximately 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law.

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