Israeli finance minister to renew funds to Arab communities after backlash
Arab mayors and several Arab and Jewish parliamentarians expressed fury when Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday that his government will restore subsidies for Arab towns that he had banned on the grounds that they were funding crime. The previous cabinet may have used part of the budget funds intended for Arab local councils as a political payoff that "criminals and terrorists" might obtain, according to Smotrich, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nationalist-religious administration.