Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich articulated a hardline national-security doctrine on Tuesday morning in Jerusalem. His speech featured uncompromising calls for permanent Israeli sovereignty over captured territory in Gaza and Lebanon, a structural framework for the voluntary migration of Gazan residents to Arab nations, the delegitimization of ‘Palestinian’ nationalism, and a shift toward complete independence in Israel–U.S. relations.
During his keynote address at the National Conservatism Conference (NatCon), Smotrich addressed the military conflict. Smotrich demanded a sharp departure from contemporary international liberal dogma, urging a return to the historic principle where “an aggressor that initiates a war and loses forfeits territory to the victor.” Smotrich maintained that Israel must apply permanent sovereign rule over areas currently held under operational control in both Gaza and Lebanon to “permanently etch the cost of defeat into our enemies’ consciousness” and secure generational deterrence that benefits Israel’s Western allies as well.
The minister spoke at length regarding the post-war trajectory of the Gaza Strip, characterizing it as an unsustainable “political mutation.” He noted that approximately 75% of its inhabitants are descendants of 1948 refugees kept in institutional stasis as hostages to promote “the supposed right to eradicate Israel.” Smotrich argued that the war’s conclusion must include a diplomatic-humanitarian framework facilitating refugee resettlement across Arab and Muslim countries that share common linguistic, cultural, and religious bonds with the Gazan population. He emphasized that advocating voluntary emigration from conflict zones to states of origin is not discriminatory. Still, a stabilizing national policy, adding that there is no justification for demanding Western democracies absorb these populations.
On an ideological plane, Smotrich directly dismissed the historical legitimacy of Palestinian nationalism, defining it as an “artificial construct invented at the start of the 20th century purely as a counter-movement to Jewish sovereignty.” He characterized its demographic foundations as migrant laborers drawn to the region by the economic prosperity catalyzed by the Zionist movement, insisting Israel must reject collective national claims for a collective “manufactured exclusively to erase the authentic nation to whom the land belongs.”
Smotrich also aimed international critiques focused on the humanitarian toll in Gaza, asserting that attempts to delegitimize Israel’s existential self-defense through individual suffering during wartime are fundamentally flawed. While affirming that Israel continuously takes extensive measures to minimize collateral harm unnecessary to operational objectives, he stressed that “the moral justification and justice of this war will never be evaluated through that lens.”
In the concluding section of his address, Smotrich turned to the historic U.S.–Israel alliance, calling for a structural evolution in bilateral ties: shifting from reliance and dependency to an equal partnership between two sovereign nations, in which Israel is fully self-reliant in its defense and economic destiny. Furthermore, he urged deeper alignment with the American conservative-nationalist movement to combat global border and identity erosion, positioning Israel as a vital strategic asset and ideological pillar of the free world.
