By Nihad Abu Ghosh – Researcher at the Progress Centre for Policies
Situation Assessment
Introduction:
Local and international media have given significant attention to the “leak” published by the New York Times regarding Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s statements during a conversation with a group of settlers on June 9th. In his talk, Smotrich revealed a gradual process of transferring army powers to civilian bodies directly under his control as a minister in the Ministry of Defence. The aim is to prevent the West Bank from becoming part of a “Palestinian state.” Smotrich confirmed that Prime Minister Netanyahu is aware of this and concurrently supports this direction, which aims, among other objectives, to contain international reaction.
Background:
Bezalel Smotrich is one of the most prominent Israeli officials today due to his public stances advocating violence against the Palestinian people and denying their national rights. His position is reinforced by the two significant roles he holds (Minister of Finance and Minister in the Ministry of Defense overseeing settlements and civil administration, which involve all matters related to the Palestinian people in the occupied territories). Smotrich is a young politician (born 1980) who had his start in the National Religious Party (Mafdal). He moved towards fascist religious-Zionism through the Jewish Home Party and the National Union, culminating in the Religious Zionism Party, which he currently leads in the Knesset. He also heads a non-governmental organization called “Regavim,” which describes itself as a “land preservation organization,” focusing on so-called Palestinian violations in Area C, including agricultural, construction, and service activities of Palestinian bedouin and farmer communities under the pretext that these activities violate the Oslo Accords. The organization is active in filing petitions and issuing demolition orders for Palestinian homes and facilities. Smotrich, who lives in the Kedumim settlement, was known in his youth for his violent opposition to the Disengagement Plan and the evacuation of Gaza settlements and northern West Bank during Sharon’s government (2005), where 700 liters of fuel intended for sabotage against the plan were found in his home.
Analysis:
• Smotrich articulated his political ideas in a famous article (2017) in the magazine “Hashiloach,” where he first proposed the idea of “resolving the conflict,” which has become a working guide for Netanyahu’s government. His main idea is that “terrorism” does not stem from Palestinian despair but from the hope that drives them to weaken Israel and establish a Palestinian state between the river and the sea. Therefore, the goal is to kill this Palestinian ambition for statehood.
• Netanyahu adopted a similar idea and expressed it last year.
• Smotrich intensified his ideas in a 2015 Knesset speech, saying, “There is no place here except for one state, the Jewish state. Whoever wants to live with us is welcome, and whoever doesn’t will only be seen through the rifle scope.”
• In various speeches, Smotrich presented Palestinians with three options: death; accepting a status below Jews without collective political rights (in biblical terms, the status of servants and slaves); or migration, whether forced or voluntary, facilitated by Israel through compensation and finding countries to receive Palestinians.
• Those who track Smotrich’s career will find that his ideas glorifying violence and advocating the expulsion of the Palestinian people and the eradication of their national aspirations were not just adolescent thoughts expressed at the beginning of his political life but have become a “Torah” for the religious Zionist trend (Haredi/Nationalist-Religious), to which Smotrich adhered when entering government. He included these ideas in the coalition agreement with the Likud party. Based on these ideas and the coalition agreement, he held the finance portfolio (through which he seizes Palestinian tax funds) and a ministerial position in the Ministry of Defense overseeing settlements and civil administration, the two most sensitive issues in the occupation of the Palestinian people. With regards to these issues, Smotrich’s ideology has been taken as the blueprint.
• Smotrich previously expressed his sorrow in 2017 for the arrest of Ahed Tamimi (then 16 years old), preferring a bullet to her knee to cripple her for life. After joining the government, he continued to make genocidal, extremist statements, including calling for the army to wipe out the village of Huwara instead of individuals doing so (February 2023) and denying the existence of a Palestinian people during a speech in France in 2023. He is a persistent advocate for the return of settlements to the Gaza Strip before and during the recent war, likely driving Netanyahu to avoid answering “the day after” questions to keep the options of settlements and mass expulsion of Palestinians theoretically open.
Alignment between Netanyahu and Smotrich:
• When Netanyahu assigns such a person the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance and overseeing civil administration and settlements in the Ministry of Defense, it is undoubtedly an endorsement of his policies based on his declared positions, just as he assigned the Ministry of National Security to Ben Gvir, who politicized the police force and altered its priorities.
• To judge Netanyahu’s stance on Smotrich’s ideas, one should follow his government’s practical steps, not his statements crafted for public relations. Netanyahu explicitly expressed ideas identical to Smotrich’s in a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee interrogation when he said (June 2023), “We must work to suppress Palestinian aspirations for a state.”
• On the ground, occupation authorities regularly work to weaken the Palestinian Authority, strip it of its powers, and reduce it to a mere security agent, an intermediary between the occupation and the Palestinian people, relieving Israel of any responsibilities towards millions of Palestinians.
• The official government policy is still concerned with the survival of the Palestinian Authority, although there is a trend indifferent to its collapse and dissolution, suggesting its replacement with elected local bodies. Simultaneously, the civil administration’s powers are being expanded (the Oslo Accords stipulated its dissolution at the end of the interim period) by increasing its staff, opening direct communication channels between it and Palestinian local councils (for service and regulatory purposes), and directly between the civil administration and individual Palestinian citizens, especially regarding work permits, effectively canceling the main function of the liaison offices.
Conclusion:
• What Smotrich states is the practical policy adopted by Netanyahu, who allows his extremist partners to implement it in turn. The matter goes beyond Netanyahu succumbing to the conditions and extortions of his extremist partners, without whom he would not have returned to the prime minister’s office. He is stronger than them, made them ministers in the first place, and is capable of restraining them. Still, they serve him in several ways: they mobilize the broad right-wing public to rally behind Netanyahu, make Netanyahu’s positions appear centrist and represent the mainstream in Israel, and their positions serve as trial balloons, pre-conditioning their implementation so that their execution later becomes expected and accepted as a fait accompli by many.
• The program to expand the civil administration’s powers is thus a program to resolve the conflict and maintain the occupation as the final ceiling for Palestinian aspirations, and one of the tools to eliminate the chances of establishing an independent Palestinian state.
