Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has emerged as one of the most consequential voices in the nation’s politics. His latest and most ambitious proposal is a public call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to occupy and settle the Gaza Strip.
In his own words: “We must establish Israeli control over the entire territory and rebuild Jewish settlements there. History has proven for a hundred years: where the plow passes, there the border and security pass. The war for our rebirth must end with the expansion of Israel’s borders.”
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This is not mere rhetoric. Since at least July 2025, Smotrich has been advancing a detailed and escalating road map.
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He called for Gaza to become “an inseparable part of the State of Israel,” described the territory as a possible real estate “bonanza,” and opened negotiations with the United States on how to divide the enclave. More recently, in late February 2026, he declared that Israel would “in the end” occupy Gaza and implement a military government there, regardless of the timeline. He also unveiled an annexation plan covering approximately 82% of the West Bank, aimed at ensuring, as he put it bluntly, “there will never, and can never be, a Palestinian state in our land.”
Given that Hamas has, at every turn, refused to disarm fully, Smotrich has also called for a resumption of military operations until this terrorist organization is conquered. The Trump administration, for its part, has reportedly given Hamas a 60-day ultimatum to disarm and demilitarize, while Smotrich has expressed confidence that if Hamas refuses, Israel will have both international legitimacy and American backing to resume the war.
We are broadly sympathetic to this vision. The Arabs control roughly 99.9% of the Middle East’s land mass, while Israel comprises a mere fraction of 1%. For Arab states to object to Jewish settlement across so small a sliver of territory stretches the bounds of credibility. Moreover, regarding the historically contested territories, the Israelis have a documented presence dating back millennia, while the distinct Palestinian national identity, as currently understood, is a far more recent political construction. And after the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, the principle that negative consequences must flow from aggression is not merely defensible but necessary.
However, reading between the lines of Smotrich’s proposals, one detects an urgency to begin the settlement process in the near term, even while Gaza’s population of roughly 2.1 million remains in place. This is where our friendly amendment comes in.
It will do no good to establish settlements in the midst of nearly 2 million Gazans. The resulting situation would closely resemble what obtains in Judea and Samaria today: perpetual cycles of Palestinian violence, settlers responding in kind, and chaos as the structural condition. Smotrich’s own rhetoric about “concentrating” the population in ever-smaller zones and making them “totally despairing” so they seek emigration elsewhere actually implicitly contains the correct sequencing. First, the population must be relocated. Then, and only then, can Jewish settlement proceed on a clean basis.
The obvious objection is: relocated where? No Arab state would accept the Gaza population. The historical record is instructive here. King Hussein of Jordan extended Palestinian refugees hospitality and sovereignty, and they repaid him by attempting to overthrow his throne during the conflict now known as Black September in 1970. The PLO then repeated this pattern in Lebanon, helping destabilize that country into civil war. Arab governments are not ignorant of this history. Beyond the precedent problem, absorbing Gaza’s population would confer a strategic advantage on Israel that Arab governments, however privately pragmatic, would not willingly extend.
The more realistic option, however unorthodox, is voluntary and financially incentivized resettlement in willing third-party countries. Some nations in Africa, Asia, and the underdeveloped world might consider accepting a large influx of working-age people if accompanied by substantial financial transfers. The funding could plausibly be assembled from a coalition of sources: diaspora Jewish philanthropy, pro-Israel governments, Gulf states quietly willing to see a resolution, and development institutions. This is not, it should be emphasized, forced expulsion in the classical sense. It is a structured, compensated relocation program of the kind that has precedent in international population transfers throughout the 20th century.
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The same logic, of course, applies subsequently to what is persistently and, in our view, incorrectly described as the “West Bank.” The territories of Judea and Samaria are part of the historic Jewish homeland and, under a coherent strategic framework, should eventually be incorporated as well.
Smotrich’s vision is correct in its destination. Our amendment is simply about the sequence: first, a humane and well-resourced relocation of Gaza’s civilian population; then the establishment of permanent Israeli sovereignty and full unimpeded Jewish settlement. Done in that order, it is achievable. Done in reverse, it risks the same intractable conflict that has plagued Israel for decades.
Walter E. Block, Ph.D., is the Harold E. Wirth eminent scholar endowed chairman and professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans. Oded Kohn Faran holds LL.B. and LL.M. degrees in law from Sha’arei Mishpat College in Israel. He is the General Director of Faran & Co. International Translations Ltd. and lives in Tbilisi, Georgia.
