The Greater Israel Ideology of Bezalel Smotrich Has Already Lost - By Dmitry Shumsky

archived 4 Feb 2024 04:32:16 UTC

Dmitry Shumsky

Paradoxical as it may sound, the response of far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich, the minister of finance for the occupation and settlements to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's waffling over the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state at the end of the war, is cause for just a little bit of optimism.

"Israel's friends must understand that by pushing for the establishment of a Palestinian state they are ensuring the next massacre, God forbid, and risking the existence of the State of Israel," said the treasurer of the hilltops a week and a half ago. "As happened in Israel, the White House also needs to disabuse itself of the ideas that led to Israel's national disaster."

Is this the same man that just 10 months ago asserted at a Paris conference that "the White House needs to hear the truth – there is no Palestine" from a podium that featured the Irgun emblem with the Greater Land of Israel, including all of Jordan? Should not a fanatical religious-nationalist spokesman for Greater Israel be consistent in opposing a Palestinian state on ideological grounds and not on pragmatic ones?

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It seems that Smotrich is slowly beginning to realize that – despite this week's preaching to the converted at the Gaza population transfer conference at Jerusalem's International Convention Center – the settler ideology has suffered defeat in its battle for the hearts and minds of most Israelis. Thus, Smotrich has no choice but to try and harness them to his messianic wagon by adopting the security discourse. The trouble is that when he does, his arguments collapse one by one.

First of all, in contrast to the blatant lie repeated over and over again by the Smotrich and Bibi-ist right, it was not the policy of "pushing for a Palestinian state" that collapsed with the October 7 disaster but rather the idea of maintaining the status quo and opposing a Palestinian state, which required indirectly but consistently supporting Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian Authority.

Smotrich had signed on to this losing strategy that was designed by Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu stated in 2019 that "anyone who opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state needs to support the transfer of money from Qatar to Hamas. That's how we'll prevent it from being established."

Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, at the 'Resettle Gaza' conference in Jerusalem on Sunday.

Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, at the 'Resettle Gaza' conference in Jerusalem on Sunday.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi

Four years earlier, Smotrich employed the same twisted logic in an interview with the Knesset Channel, saying that Hamas is nothing less than a political "asset" to Israel precisely because it is a terrorist organization. The PA is just a burden.

Secondly, Smotrich's tweet implied that a Palestinian state had already been established once (in Gaza), which led to the October 7 massacre – and therefore agreeing to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza would lead to more of the same. That is also a baseless lie.

Hamas' Gaza Strip was never an independent state, rather an autonomous area subject to Israeli control in the most fundamental way: Israel controlled Gaza's population registry and its economy, supplied it with water and electricity and countenanced, as mentioned, massive financial support for Hamas in order for the Palestinian terrorist organization to maintain itself and enable Israel to escape pressure from the international community for two states.

In fact, Hamas' Gaza is the backyard of Israel; even if it wasn't actively created by Israel, it was without a doubt nurtured as a political "asset," as Smotrich defined it. Moreover, even though Israel from time to time launched limited military strikes on Hamas, its basic security approach to Gaza was not a military approach but rather one of policing, in line with the de facto "one-state" situation that prevails between the river and the sea.

Israeli troops in Gaza city in November.

Israeli troops in Gaza city in November.Credit: Ronen Zvulun / Reuters

Alas, it was this misguided approach that led to the failure of October 7. What was perceived to be the more urgent need of providing policing services for the West Bank settlers led to the bulk of the Gaza Division's troops being transferred to securing prayers at Hawara and the tombs of Joseph and Rachel.

The only way to uproot Israel's disastrous "policing" approach towards the Palestinians is to divide the land between the river and the sea into two nation states, separated and protected from each other by an international border agreed upon between them and recognized by the international community.

Therefore, contrary to Smotrich's words, the push for the establishment of a Palestinian state is not a push for the next massacre, but on the contrary, the only way to prevent it and ensure the peace and security of the State of Israel.

This truth – as well as Netanyahu's deliberate contribution to the strengthening of Hamas, while making a fatal bet on the lives of Israeli citizens – has not yet been internalized by most Israelis. Those who support the division of the land still have a lot of work to do to convince the general Israeli public.

One thing in which we can take comfort, even at this stage, is that while the two-state paradigm is still far from winning, the ideology of the Greater Land of Israel has already lost.