Six years ago, Bezalel Smotrich, then a young Knesset member in his first term, published his “Decisive Plan” — a kind of “endgame” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to the far-right lawmaker, who now serves as Israel’s finance minister and the government’s West Bank overlord, the inherent contradiction between Jewish and Palestinian national aspirations does not allow for any kind of compromise, reconciliation, or partition. Instead of maintaining the illusion that a political agreement is possible, he argued, the issue must be unilaterally resolved once and for all.
The plan makes only passing references to Gaza, with Smotrich seeming content with Israel’s encagement of the enclave as an ideal solution to what he calls the “demographic challenge” posed by Palestinians’ very existence. Vis-à-vis the West Bank, however, he calls for annexing its entirety.
In the latter territory, demographic concerns will be ameliorated by offering the 3 million Palestinian residents a choice: to renounce their national aspirations and continue living on their land in an inferior status, or to emigrate abroad. If, instead, they choose to take up arms against Israel, they will be identified as terrorists and the Israeli army will set about “killing those who need to be killed.” When asked at a meeting, in which he presented his plan to religious-Zionist figures, if he also meant killing families, women, and children, Smotrich replied: “In war as in war.”