Bezalel Smotrich – Minister of Annexation

Bezalel Smotrich is one of the strongest, most influential actors advancing Israel’s policy for annexing the West Bank. During the past decade, in his capacity as Knesset member and minister in Israeli governments, he has revolutionized Israeli control in the West Bank, helped expand settlers’ presence and overseen efforts to dismantle the Palestinian Authority and confine Palestinians in the West Bank to increasingly smaller areas. These are cross-cutting structural changes, which, in his own words, “change the DNA of the system for many, many years,”

Smotrich grew up in the settlement Beit El and lives in the settlement Kedumim. He co-founded Regavim, which promotes Israeli control in the West Bank and pressures authorities to increase enforcement against Palestinian construction. Since he took office in 2015, Smotrich has become the settlement movement’s delegate to the Knesset and the government and is leading efforts to annex the West Bank to Israel. Smotrich also co-initiated the Settlement Division bill, designed to restore the Settlement Division as the government’s executive arm after its activity was halted following a legal opinion. He also led the effort for the so-called Regularization bill in order to retroactively authorize settlements and outposts built on privately-owned Palestinian land.

In 2017, Smotrich presented his vision in a document termed Israel’s Decisive Plan, in which he calls to annex the West Bank. His plan rejects Palestinian claims for self-definition and determines that “there is room for only one expression of national self-determination” between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The plan gives Palestinian residents of the West Bank three options: relinquish Palestinian national aspirations and accept Israeli rule; “emigrate” to other countries with Israel’s assistance; or “be dealt with by the security forces with a strong hand.”

After Israel’s 37th government formed in December 2022, Smotrich demanded and received the means for transforming this vision into government policy. Smotrich was appointed to serve as Additional Minister in the Ministry of Defense as well as Finance Minister. In February 2023, an agreement was signed and most of the powers for administering civilian affairs in the West Bank by Israel were delegated to Smotrich, including land, planning and building, infrastructure, settlement and enforcement. At his initiative, the Ministry of Defense established the Settlement Administration in order to implement the transfer of these powers. A Deputy Head of the Civil Administration for Civil Affairs was appointed, subordinate to the Settlement Administration rather than to the military chain of command. This step transferred the bulk of civilian affairs from the administration of the military mechanism to a civilian and political body those answers to Smotrich. Thus, the Civil Administration has been all but stripped of its role as the military body operating pursuant to the laws of occupation.

In parallel, Smotrich manipulated his control over the Finance Ministry to weaken the Palestinian Authority and push it to the brink of financial collapse. He delayed and held billions of shekels in taxes Israel collects for the Palestinian Authority by virtue of its control over the borders, ports and passage of goods, and also threatened to cut the Palestinian banks off from Israel’s banking system. These measures have guided the Palestinian Authority towards one of its most severe financial crises since its establishment. Pursuant to his role as Additional Minister at the Ministry of Defense, Smotrich also worked to strip the Palestinian Authority of its civilian powers in Areas A and B. These steps are designed to collapse the Palestinian Authority and fit into Smotrich’s overt goal of thwarting the establishment of a Palestinian state.

In September 2025, Smotrich convened a press conference with the settler leadership and presented the plan for applying Israeli sovereignty to approximately 82% of the West Bank territory. He asserted: “we did not establish this country to make our enemies prosper,” adding that the overarching principle underlying applying sovereignty is “maximum territory and minimum Arab population.” A map of the so-called Sovereignty Plan accompanied the declaration, illustrating his intention to force three million Palestinians into six separated ghettos in Area A and annex the rest of the territory, where only Israelis will remain. The districts of Bethlehem, Salfit and Qalqiliyah, home to over 450,000 Palestinians, were absent from the map, which bore the State’s official emblem.

Thanks to Smotrich’s political rank, his broad powers within the Ministry of Defense and control over budgets as Finance Minister, he is key to the annexation agenda. After years of working to promote the settlement movement’s goals within the Knesset and outside of it, his roles in the government enable him to translate his ideology into policy, government mechanisms, budgets and facts on the ground.

Map of the Sovereignty Plan presented by Minister Smotrich, 3 September 2025 (screenshot, Facebook page of Bezalel Smotrich in Hebrew)