Consider This from NPR - Why did Israel restart the war? One answer: Bezalel Smotrich.

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

Bezalel Smotrich's views were once fringe in Israel. He's an ultranationalist West Bank settler, who has repeatedly called for Israel to resettle the Gaza Strip. Today, as finance minister, he's a key figure influencing the future of Israel's war against Hamas.NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi has the story of Smotrich's rise to power in Israel politics.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In Israel, the voices opposing the resumption of the war against Hamas are loud, and they are many. Last weekend, more than 100,000 took to the streets in cities across the country, according to protest organizers. In Tel Aviv, protesters chanted, if an agreement isn't reached, it is murder for the hostages. Israel believes there are still 24 hostages alive in Gaza, along with the bodies of many more. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he resumed the war and ended an earlier

ceasefire in an effort to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages. Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin says this is risking the hostages' lives. Back in 2011, he negotiated with Hamas to win the release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. With the lack of political leadership of Hamas in Gaza, only military leaders of Hamas are left in Gaza today and they are not necessarily taking orders from the Hamas leadership outside. We're putting the hostages in direct danger. They have threatened to execute them.

They could be killed by Israeli bombing. Polls show Israeli public opinion is not on Netanyahu's side. But in this moment, Netanyahu's fate does not depend on public opinion. It depends on holding together his coalition. He's worried about political survival. Alan Pincus is a former Israeli diplomat who served under Netanyahu's predecessors. He has no political life expectancy outside the prime minister's office. Netanyahu is also still on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, and if convicted,

he could face prison. And he's also trying to fire the head of Israel's internal security service, which was conducting a separate investigation into his administration. And he's also trying to push through an overhaul of the judicial system that would give him more power. That effort has prompted mass protests. Netanyahu needs the far-right parties in his coalition to keep his government afloat. In particular, he needs his ultra-nationalist finance minister, Batsalao Smoltrich, who

had threatened to collapse Netanyahu's government if he did not resume the war on Hamas. Consider this. Where Israel's war in Gaza goes next might depend in large part on Batsalel Shmoltrich. So what does he want? From NPR, I'm Scott Dettro. It's Consider This from NPR. Betzalel Smoltrich's views were once fringe in Israel. He's an ultra-nationalist, a West Bank settler, and he has repeatedly called for Israel to resettle the Gaza Strip.

His rise to power in Israeli politics has been a long one. And NPR's Hadil Al-Shalchi takes the story from here. Israeli Finance Minister Betzelel Smotrich was once a wanted man by Israel's version of the FBI. In 2005, Israel was rocked by mass protests. Israeli settlers were demonstrating against the removal of Jewish settlements from Gaza. At the time, Devir Kariv was an agent

with Israel's internal security agency, the Shin Bet. After we received an indication, I gave the police an order to enter the house and stop the raid. Kariv says late on July 11, 2005, they raided a home in central Israel. In the basement, we found a lot of jerrycans, which had a lot of oil and oil. He says, in the basement, we found several jerry cans filled with a lot of oil and fuel. They arrested five people there. One of them was a student called Betzalel Smoltrich. Kariv says the men were interrogated for three and a half weeks. From the Shin Betz perspective, we successfully thwarted what Bezalel Smotrich and his group

had planned, Kariv says. While he says he can't divulge what that was, Israeli media has reported that Smotrich and his group were planning to blow up a major Israeli highway. Smotrich remained completely silent during his interrogations and was released without charge. He did not give away his secrets, but later as a politician, he spoke a lot about what drives his political motivations. My long-term desire is for the State of Israel to be governed according to the Torah, or

Jewish holy scripture he once told Israeli radio. Smotrich is an ultra-nationalist religious Zionist, a type of Judaism that branched out from the secular Zionist movement that founded Israel. While many ultra-religious Jews historically rejected the Zionist movement, a minority accepted it. Many of them embraced the settlement movement after Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the War of 1967. Tamer Persico is a scholar of Jewish extremism.

The more Jews settle the lands that the state of Israel has conquered, the more redemption is coming close. So it's a messianic movement, very motivated, pious and devoted religion. Persico says Smotrich is on the far right of the spectrum of religious Zionism, also known as ultra-Orthodox nationalists, who follow Jewish law and reject values like feminism, liberalism and LGBTQ rights. Smotrich and his followers believe that the Israeli-occupied West Bank is the Jewish people's ancestral home featured in the Bible. A God-given land, they must make a permanent part of Israel. Smotrich, a lawyer, was first elected to parliament in 2015.

Two years later, he wrote a manifesto called Israel's Decisive Plan. In it, he writes how to tackle the main obstacle to settling the West Bank, the Palestinians. Smotrich gives the Palestinians basically three options. Immigrate, surrender, and live as, let's say, subjects without the right to vote, or fight and die. Only a few years later, Smotrich became the leader of the religious Zionist party. Ohad Tal is a lawmaker in Smotrich's party. I think that he's a very clever and smart person who understands the reality. He's presented as somebody radical because people find it hard to accept the truth.

Smotrich was perfectly poised for what happened in the most recent Israeli national election. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won and looked for allies to form a coalition. But he's facing trial on corruption charges. Persico says Netanyahu was desperate. He didn't have anyone else. Because of his ongoing trial, people said they would not sit in parliament with him. The only parties that would agree to form a government with Netanyahu were the ultra-orthodox and religious Zionists, including Smotrich's party.

Netanyahu formed a coalition with them, giving them more power than they had ever had before. The prime minister appointed Smotrich as finance minister and to the Ministry of Defense. Jewish extremism scholar Persico. And in that position, he has basically taken over the civil management of settlers in the occupied territories, meaning he's on the verge of official annexation. After the October 2023 attacks on Israel, Netanyahu called on Smotrich to be part of his war cabinet. The finance minister reached for his faith.

I struggled with this decision and gathered my rabbis to consult with them. After all, I want to influence the war, he told a group of religious students last year in a video posted online. Smotrich is reported to regularly consult with a group of rabbis known as the Five. Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira is one of them. He has opposed a hostage deal. There is joy that hostages will return. But despite that joy, this is a very bad deal for Israel, Shapira said in an online lecture. Persikico says Smotrich's faithful devotion is evident every time he threatens to collapse Netanyahu's coalition if the war doesn't continue in Gaza, where he ultimately wants to see Jewish

settlements rebuilt. He is the primal force that is withholding the end of the war. Smotrich has leveraged this power to further settler ambitions in the West Bank. Just days after Israel paused the war in January and agreed to a deal with Hamas for the release of hostages, Netanyahu ordered the escalation of incursions in the West Bank, causing massive destruction in urban refugee camps and displacing thousands of Palestinians. Israel says it's to weed out Palestinian militants.

It's very feasible to say this is just a card Netanyahu gave Smotrich in order to appease him when going into the hostage deal. Smotrich was sidelined under President Biden's administration for his anti-Palestinian rhetoric. And in Israel, polls show that he would not survive another election. Only 11 percent of the Israeli population voted for Smotrich's party in the last elections in 2022. This month Smotrich was invited to Washington DC to meet with his counterpart in President Trump's administration. Smotrich rarely gives interviews to U.S. Western media. This month he gave his first press conference since his trip to the U.S. and I posed a question

to him. I have two questions. I asked him about plans for the annexation of the West Bank. Smotrich objects to the word annexation. Annexation implies taking something that isn't yours, the minister says. Judea and Samaria, the biblical name for the West Bank, belongs to us. Trump told reporters his administration would announce its position on West Bank annexation by early March.

That date has passed. We are in dialogue on this matter. I prefer not to speak about it. You will receive the answer, I hope. Smodrich says, Israel and the US are in dialogue about it, and I prefer not to go into details. I reply, is Trump the man who will make it happen for you? Will he support you to make it happen? We believe this is the right thing to do, he says.

We're engaged in discussions and dialogue. So while Smotrich firmly believes he has God's mandate to take over the West Bank, the question is whether he also has Trump's blessing. That was NPR's Hadeel al-Shalchi in Jerusalem. That sound of protest from the top of the episode came from reporting by NPR's Kat Lonsdorf. This episode was produced by Michael Levitt and Connor Donovan with Audio Engineering by Hannah Glovna.

It was edited by William Troup and James Heider. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. Before we go, a quick thank you to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the show. Your contribution makes it possible for NPR journalists all around the world to do their jobs. Supporters also hear every episode without messages from sponsors. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. It's Consider This from NPR.

I'm Scott Detro.