As we do every year, JewishPress.com selects our Jewish Man of the Year based on the significant impact they’ve had on Jewish lives. Some of our past picks have been practically prescient. Itamar Ben-Gvir became National Security Minister, and since October 7, his circle of supporters has expanded well beyond his original electoral base. Regavim became the major player in fighting for Judea and Samaria. And of course, there was Jared Kushner. Last year’s choice, Yinon Magal, may have initially appeared to have been nothing more than a rightwing TV show host, but in fact it’s become clear to all that he’s led a media revolution in Israel.
This year we chose Bezalel Smotrich to be our Man of the Year for 5784.
Minister Bezalel Smotrich has been utilizing his post in the Defense Ministry to revolutionize Jewish lives in Judea and Samaria. In two years, he has come as close as could ever be imagined to instituting Israeli civilian life there without actually annexing Area C. He has done it relying on his skills as a patient and empathetic bureaucrat, without alienating the most powerful institution in Israel – the security establishment.
In the year 5784, which has been packed with drama and heroism, we saw Bezalel Smotrich’s work as the deepest and most beneficial to ushering in real changes for the Day After the war.
For that, and for everything else he has done for the Jewish State, we have chosen Bezalel Smotrich to be our Man of the Year.
We interviewed Smotrich on a sweltering mid-September Sunday afternoon in his Jerusalem office at the Finance Ministry.
On the sidewalk outside stood a permanent encampment of leftist protesters armed with bullhorns who yelled, “Busha, busha,” (Shame, shame) at anyone going in and out of the government compound.
While waiting for the interview (I am chronically early for everything), I noted two things: one, lots of knitted yarmulkes and headdresses; two, it’s a very informal shop, reminiscent of a bygone Israel. I tend to attribute the sense of comfort I was seeing in the staff to their boss – Smotrich is a good guy.
What follows is a deep dive into Smotrich’s intellectual and ideological beliefs, political positions, and plans for Israel.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF NATIONAL RELIGIOUS POLITICS
Two days before the end of 2018, on Saturday night, December 29, the Historic NRP, a.k.a. Habayit Hayehudi, split between the chairman, Naftali Bennett and his political partner Ayelet Shaked, who became the New Right, and Uri Ariel and Bezalel Smotrich of the National Union – Tekuma party.
Two weeks later, Smotrich defeated Ariel in a vote to become the Tekuma chairman. And so ended the NRP we knew and loved after having peaked in 2013 with 12 Knesset mandates – having won such numbers only twice before, in 1969 and 1977.
Naftali Bennett went on to transform the six votes he won in 2021 into the post of prime minister, reneging on his explicit promises to his voters and creating a coalition with the center-right, center-left, the radical-left and the Islamist Arab party. He lasted from June 13, 2021, to June 20, 2022.
Subsequently, Smotrich ran in November 2022 on a joint list of his Religious Zionism Party, Itamar ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit, and Avi Maoz’s Noam party, and won 14 seats.
In a lengthy process of coalition negotiations, Smotrich secured for himself the posts of Finance Minister and adjunct minister in the Defense Ministry, as well as two additional ministerial posts and the chairmanship of the Knesset Constitution committee.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT PA ARABS
JP: Although the nation has moved to the right, you have yet to forge a consensus regarding the Arabs of Eretz Israel who have been with the Zionist movement since 1878, when the first Bedouin attacked the settlers of Petah Tikvah.
Bezalel Smotrich: The consensus may be reached at a later stage. It is the nature of trailblazing processes to start slowly and small, and they are led by people with a clear agenda. Slowly but surely, Zionism continues.
Look, for many years I’ve been asking myself, who leads the left-wing camp? And, clearly, for years, it has been Meretz.
When the late radical journalist Uri Avneri started talking some 42 years ago about a Palestinian State, Mapam, the precursor of Meretz, objected. But Avneri, like Cato the Elder, repeated his message again and again until he turned it into the supposed ultimate solution, bar none.
And it’s us who are being asked now, what’s the alternative – that famous Shimon Peres challenge – despite the obvious reality that suggests the biggest concession the most leftist Israeli leader is willing to make does not reach the minimum demands of the most lenient Palestinian leader, who would be assassinated the next day should he accept it.
After decades during which the left has branded a long list of axioms which are in part based on moral arguments – it is supposedly immoral to occupy another people, the familiar progressive idea of the inherently immoral strong versus the inherently moral weak. Then there are the “realistic” axioms – there is no military solution to terrorism.
The left has worked for many years to brand this slogan. If there is no military solution, then we have no choice but to seek a political solution which inevitably includes a withdrawal and the creation of a Palestinian state.
And time and again, it turns out this is a fiction and you have no one out there with whom to make peace, and every stretch of land from which you withdraw immediately becomes a frontier Iranian terrorist base aiming to annihilate the State of Israel.
The process of disillusionment of Israeli society is slow.
You asked me, how come we haven’t yet managed to create a consensus, and you’re right. It’s something I ask myself every morning. We must keep asking ourselves this question daily, and find ways to better deal with this matter, and it requires enormous strength.
In the end, the political debate within Israeli society, especially this past two years, during the current coalition government, exposed the watershed in Israeli society as being identity-based.
Many people who used to be on the left before October 7 were suddenly confronted with the bubble that blew up in their faces – kibbutzniks from Be’eri and Kfar Aza who for years were convinced that we were on the wrong side and needed to get closer and make peace – discovered that the Arab side was drenched in antisemitism and deep hatred of Israel.
They suddenly saw mobs of Gazans who rushed in and raped and murdered and looted, and at that point those leftists said, wait a minute, we are hanging between heaven and earth.
The leftist perception collapsed.
On the right, it was not only a logical perception of the correct solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict of the past 100 years. It’s about identity. Being on the right means more Judaism and more Zionism.
Israeli society is in the process of moving to the right in the political arena, but it still has a hard time moving to the right in the arena of identity.
In the US it’s very clear. For Democrats and Republicans, the watershed line is over identity and values. Conservatism versus Progressivism. In Israel, this is a process that is advancing very slowly, as we discover how to live with one another.
The right has always been realistic, and always value-driven, and connected to our tradition and history – this is why we are realistic. The left has been trying to create a new Jew, disconnected from his roots and past and history and values. And this is why they’re trying to forge a new reality which fails to correspond with the real reality.
Today, the left-right debate is no longer rooted in values but in identity politics. Because the deep left is about a different identity than yours and mine, it is also pulling in a different political direction even though it understands there’s no political solution. I don’t believe there are honest people on the left who rationally think that it is possible to make peace with the Arabs after October 7.
I, by the way, believe peace is possible. If you read my Decision Plan, I argue that it is the only key to peace and coexistence.
THE DECISION PLAN: THE KEY TO PEACE IS ON THE RIGHT
In 2017, Smotrich published in HaShiloach his manifesto for peace with the Arabs, after suggesting that so far, all the solutions have been futile, and if nothing new is done, these attempts would forever continue to push false hopes and daydreams. “It’s time to say enough, break the paradigm, and find the proper way out of this road that seems to have no end,” he wrote.
The Smotrich plan is based on four basic assumptions:
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- The invention of “Palestinian people” was merely a counter-movement to the Zionist movement, which provided it with its raison d’être (unlike other Arab groups that share a history and a language).
- As a result, the Palestinian national movement will never accept the existence of the State of Israel within any borders, as long as it believes in the possibility of realizing its national aspirations in the Land of Israel.
- The national aspirations of the Jewish people and of the Arabs of the Land of Israel are contradictory and cannot be reconciled by allowing both to coexist.
- Arab terrorism does not stem from desperation but from the hope of subduing the State of Israel.
According to the plan, sustainable peace will be achieved through the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority, the application of Israeli sovereignty in all of Judea and Samaria, the establishment of many Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, and the encouragement of hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews to move there.
Arabs living in Judea and Samaria will be offered to live under Israeli rule as residents and to lead life at the municipal level in regional administrations devoid of national characteristics that will be elected democratically.
The districts are: Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jericho, Shechem, and Jenin, and their administrations will be compatible with the cultural and tribal structure of Arab society in each district, ensuring internal peace and economic prosperity. The plan does not give Judea and Samaria Arabs the right to vote for the Knesset, thus preserving a Jewish political majority in the State of Israel.
Note: several Middle East experts, most notably Dr. Mordechai Kedar, have demonstrated that all the Arab states enjoying peace and prosperity, such as the Gulf emirates, have solid tribal societies sharing a tradition and a language, while most of the Arab countries that are torn by constant turmoil (except for Egypt) were created artificially by the European powers that lumped together assortments of tribal societies to fit inside their drawn borders.
An essential component of the Smotrich plan is to rid the Arabs once and for all of the delusion of someday defeating Israel. Peace according to Smotrich will come not through hope but through complete despair.
Smotrich: When there will be an internalization on the part of the Arabs of the notion that we are here to stay because we have nowhere else to go, there will be an acceptance of this idea and consequently also coexistence and peace.
I reject the notion that we are immoral in this, while the left is moral. Take the case of the expulsion from Gush Katif. The left pretended to come from a moral place – we can’t rule over another nation – but did this bring a moral outcome? It was bad for the Arabs and bad for the Jews.
I believe that the Jewish approach that we should settle this land is moral, and brings and will continue to bring goodness and light to the whole world. What was here before we returned? Sand, swamps, and malaria. The Jewish people arrived and brought so much prosperity and progress and light and technology and goodness. And anyone who wishes to enjoy it is welcome – we are the most welcoming hosts since our forefather Abraham – conditioned on your understanding of your place.
And if you want to undermine my right to exist, under my identity, and you’re doing it with violence and terrorism, do not expect to be treated with kid’s gloves.
It’s elementary stuff.
NO ARABS ON THE SCAFFOLDINGS
JP: In Gush Etzion there’s a huge debate going on whether or not to bring in Arab construction workers from the PA, because nothing is getting built since the October ban on their hiring. What is being done about importing foreign workers?
Smotrich: The issue right now is about security and risk management. Think about it, PA Arabs are sitting at home, watching Al Jazeera, being fed lies, they’re certain we are carrying out genocide in Gaza – and then they come into a settlement, go figure what they’re going to do.
This is why I am blocking with my body letting PA Arab workers into “green line” Israel. In Judea and Samaria, the IDF commander did it on his own.
So, check out this discrimination: when my cousin in Ra’anana wants to hire an Arab worker from the PA it requires a cabinet meeting and debates on risk management and whatnot. But to let the same PA Arabs work across the street from my house in Kedumim in Samaria – that’s decided by the IDF commander.
We are fourth-rate citizens of a banana republic under military rule.
It’s not democratic, it’s not egalitarian, and, indeed, I was offended by it.
I also believe that economically it’s time to wean ourselves of the Palestinian workers.
We are one before last on the OECD list of countries in terms of our efficiency in construction. There are very few countries out there that still employ the construction method of putting down rows of cinderblocks and cement.
It’s a stupid technology which is borne by the fact that we have cheap labor. Today, countless construction methods are cheaper, of higher quality, faster, and environmentally friendlier, and, naturally, their manpower component is smaller in the overall costs.
Contractors are telling me they’re aware of all this, but they are addicted to the cheap labor. So, I believe that in the end, this ban whose main purpose is to protect the Israeli settlers, is also good for the economy.
As a believer in a right-wing economy, I think the market itself will eventually correct itself. We’re trying to help by making it simpler to import construction technologies, and we’re working very hard on deregulating many aspects of importing foreign workers.
So far, between 20 and 30 thousand have come in, more should follow. By the end of the calendar year, I believe we’ll reach 40 thousand foreign construction workers. They’ll take the place of the banned Palestinians, will allow us to employ modern technologies, and only improve the construction business. The Palestinian economy should take care of itself.
But the ban is first and foremost on security grounds.
LIFE UNDER COGAT
Since taking over control of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) as part of his job as minister in the defense ministry, Smotrich has succeeded in establishing five new settlements and regulating ten more – more than any pro-settlement minister in any capacity ever.
At the same time, every once in a while, during his tenure, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has been showing who’s the boss by sending out demolition units to intimidate and evict settlers from their outposts, most frequently in Samaria.
On top of that, Gallant, a right-winger, has placed more Jews than any of his predecessors in administrative detention – jail time without an indictment or a normal judicial process.
Smotrich: I’ll start by saying that the past two years have been the best for the residents of Samaria in decades.
You can’t argue with the numbers: construction starts, regulation of formerly disputed settlements, declaring lands as state-owned, redrawing the blue lines (originally imposed by the Ariel Sharon administration through a New Israel Fund board member, attorney Talia Sasson, a declared enemy of the settlement enterprise), paving new roads, and the settlements are growing and developing.
It’s complex, it’s not free from difficulties, and there are international pressures and judicial hurdles.
About the Civil Administration, Smotrich is understanding:
Don’t forget this system has had this DNA for 40 years. It’s not an F-15 that you can shift around instantly with a joystick. COGAT is a big aircraft carrier with hundreds of people who are used to working in particular ways over the years, they all have their particular perceptions.
I don’t like patting on my own shoulder, but I believe the secret of my success has been in being pragmatic. I know where I want to go, very clearly, my eye is always on the compass, and I know how to navigate through a complex reality, one step forward, one step back, with compromises, with consent.
I don’t think you win wars by hitting your head against the wall.
There’s a type of politician who doesn’t have values, goals, understandings. They do what it takes to get by. There’s also the type who is very clear ideologically but always runs against the wall. The ability to promote ideas is in navigating between what’s wanted and what can be done. To be very clear about what’s being sought, but with both feet on the ground as to what’s possible. And in any given situation, you do your best to maximize what you can get of it.
With those skills, I walked into a system whose DNA was forged over 40 years and started to try and move and change it.
The army had enormous resistance in the beginning. The military is one of the mightiest systems in the State of Israel. So, I decided from the start that I wasn’t looking to beat them. Because then I wasn’t going to get anything.
We had a very clear coalition agreement – but the army objected. We negotiated. We negotiated again, we compromised, we compromised again, and I compromised a lot throughout this process. But the end result was that the army today is with me. We work together.
I could go for a win and pass a cabinet decision over the head of the army, by force. But they wouldn’t have collaborated.
Smotrich believes the appointment of the new Central Command Commander, Major General Avi Bluth, is an improvement over his predecessor, retired Major General Yehuda Fox.
Smotrich: For one thing, Bluth entered an established reality. Fox was used to working a certain way and suddenly we moved him in a different direction, it was difficult for him.
I want to explain the depth of the change, which I reached through agreements with the prime minister, and the defense minister, the military apparatus, the judicial system. Don’t forget, they appealed against our moves to the High Court of Justice – and the military prosecution defended us. I believe my approach has proven itself, and the proof is in the pudding: there hasn’t been a better time for the settlements for decades.
The reality in Judea and Samaria in which the military is running the lives of civilians is bad.
First of all, it’s not democratic. We have half a million people who like yourself and like anyone else cast their votes in the polling booth every few years. They elect MKs who forge a government – but they are not governed by their elected representatives. They are ruled by a military commander.
I meet many foreigners who ask, how can you defend such a thing? It’s as undemocratic as can be.
Moreover, a military system doesn’t know how to run civilians’ lives. And it’s good that it doesn’t, we want a military system to know how to fight the enemy.
There are inherent problems with the military language and its terminology. Also, in the army, officers move up to a new job every two years. So, no institutional memory. In short, an army is not made to manage civilians. As a result, even when the army means well, the outcome is bad.
Now, the central purpose of the army is to provide security, rightfully so. As a result, over several decades, the civilian system has been run over by the military’s priorities. Whenever the two were in conflict, the military argument always won.
This is illogical.
Imagine if the army was given the management of the state budget. It would have spent all the money on security, and nothing would have been left – nothing for education, health, or welfare. No matter how much money you give the army it’s never enough.
It can’t work like this. In a democratic state, there are many interests and they need to be balanced. Normally, this is done by the political echelon, the government, on whose desk all the country’s myriad interests are spread out, and it makes decisions.
I’ll give you an example: in the previous government, Defense Minister Benny Gantz passed a decision to double the number of Palestinian workers who were allowed into Israel. He had his security reasons, he wanted to calm things down – the familiar conceptzia.
He only forgot one little thing: PA Arab workers must go through check posts to enter Israel, and those check posts were only big enough to handle the original number of workers. And so, as of 5 AM, traffic was jammed in front of the checkposts. After two hours of that, each resident of the nearby settlements had to also endure the morning rush on the way to Tel Aviv.
This could have been prevented in three days’ work of an engineering crew that would have created a fenced parking lot where the Arab workers could wait. They could have done many things. But Gantz hadn’t thought about it. Because the defense ministry and the military establishment are thinking like an army.
And I was telling them, at the civil administration, we have half a million people here with a civilian set of needs, I want to help them carve out civilian lives for themselves. Naturally, at some point, there would be clashes with the military’s needs and we’d have to balance and negotiate.
But it’s inconceivable that the civilians’ needs are always at the lowest priority.
I believe this is what finally convinced the prime minister, and I had given him a long list of examples. And the more the security establishment resisted, the better my point was being made for me. Because the PM realized the military didn’t even begin to understand the meaning of providing the civilian needs of half a million people.
ILLEGAL ARAB CONSTRUCTION CHOKING SETTLEMENTS
Smotrich: By the way, that’s also the reason for the total failure of the civil administration to enforce the law on illegal Arab construction in Area C (the area governed by Israel).
The army is dealing with security issues, it wants quiet. All its resources are used for that, and it has no resources left for enforcing the law. Also, enforcement is inevitably messy, and the army doesn’t want messy, it wants quiet.
I opened before the prime minister a map showing the expansion of illegal Arab construction that had grown in one decade under his watch in Area C, choking the Jewish settlements, and he was shocked.
He didn’t know!
I showed him that the Palestinian expansion was strategic. He understood immediately and became convinced.
So, I proposed that I would run the vertical civilian management, and he would run the military aspects. And, truth be told, to get there, I conceded to compromises that went against our coalition agreement. I was supposed to be the one appointing the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. I let the army keep it. I preferred to go slowly.
It’s important to note that we have yet to change the judicial status or the political status of the territories. We refer to them as disputed, the world at large calls them occupied. The military commander is still the sovereign. Fine.
But we’ve changed the manner of managing civilian life under those systems. I would have liked to impose Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, I think it would have been better for the security establishment, too.
But I recognize that this is a process which will require the right national and international opportunity, and I hope we’ll be successful, God willing.
But for now, this is a democratic move to equate the civil rights of Israelis living in Judea and Samaria with the rest of the citizenry. In the end, there is the rule of law and it must be enforced. The fact that for decades the rule of law was used to favor the Arab population and not the Jewish one is not democratic, legal, nor acceptable in terms of international law.
Regarding the demolitions of outposts: I want Jewish settlement to be above board. In keeping with the law. With systemic planning. Just as I don’t want anyone who feels like it to build in Ra’anana, I don’t want anyone who feels like it to build in Judea and Samaria.
When you have a hostile government which is opposed to the settlement enterprise, and freezes construction, there’s no choice and some people take the initiative illegally. All of Zionism happened this way. But when the government supports, promotes, builds, and facilitates legally, why should anyone plant their construction wherever they want and block someone else’s view illegally?
Normalization of life in Judea and Samaria also means organized planning.
ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTIONS
Smotrich objects to administrative detention. However, he believes that in the war against terrorism, a democracy should be able to expand its toolbox.
Smotrich: What’s the problem with administrative detention? Because the process is not transparent, you might hurt the innocent. Our entire criminal process is dedicated to preventing punishing the innocent.
Administrative detention bypasses all that. You do it based on secret information which you do not expose, there’s no traditional judicial protocol, and the accused doesn’t know what are the charges against him. There’s a great concern that you’ll hurt innocent people.
In a war, this entire perspective changes. War is between collectives. We try to narrow down the possibility of hurting the innocent, but on occasion, unfortunately, some are hurt, it’s part of the reality of war. When you have to get to terrorists who are hiding in a civilian population, innocents will get hurt, but we do everything in our power to limit it. So that when a country is fighting for its life against terrorism it is allowed to use a toolset that includes administrative detention.
Smotrich believes that administrative detention is a legitimate tool against terrorists who wish to annihilate the Jewish state, but illegitimate against citizens who carry out acts of vandalism and even violence against the PA Arab population. The latter are criminals who should be handled as such, with an open judicial process and under the rules of evidence.
Smotrich: Nationalist crime is not a good thing, it’s bad. I believe anarchy is very dangerous. You’ll never see me defending people who take the law into their own hands and set fires. I think they a minority of a minority of a minority of the settlers.
In Judea and Samaria, there’s much less crime than in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Criminal records in the big cities include the entire variety of violence, while in Judea and Samaria, it’s nationalist crime.
I’m against it, don’t get me wrong. Some have tried to demonize me saying I support it. I don’t.
However, I object to discrimination. I will not have the Israelis living in Judea and Samaria be treated like second-class citizens.
Israel does not exercise administrative detention against civilians anywhere, including against crime families, because of our democratic values.
I object to the defense minister issuing administrative detentions against Israelis just because they’re settlers. They should be treated like suspected criminals, if need be, but through the judicial process. If I’m a criminal suspect, detain me, interrogate me, prosecute me, like every other citizen.
Fighting terrorism, fighting an enemy, we have no choice. In that case, administrative detention is a necessary evil. However it is not appropriate to use it in dealing with all kinds of marginal social phenomena. Don’t cover for the lack of professionalism of the police and other agencies by violating the civil rights of settlers.
A ZIONIST CHIEF RABBI
The term of office of Israel’s chief rabbis was set to end on October 31, 2023. On June 4, the Knesset approved a bill that extended the term of office of the chief rabbis until April 9, 2024, so that the elections would be held after the elections for the local municipalities. Following the outbreak of the Iron Swords War, the Knesset approved another extension of the rabbis’ tenure until July 1, 2024. Finally, last September 1, the Election Committee for the Chief Rabbinate approved the members of the Electoral Assembly and a date was set for the election on 26th of Elul (September 29), a day before the end of the High Court’s ultimatum. On September 5, the Election Committee announced that the voting would take place on Sunday, September 29 at the Ramada Hotel in Jerusalem.
As of Sunday, September 29, Rabbi David Yosef, son of the Late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a Haredi, was elected to the post of Sephardic chief rabbi. The voting on the Ashkenazi chief rabbi ended in a tie, with both Rabbi Micha Halevi – national religious, and Rabbi Kalman Bar – Chassidic, winning 40 votes each. There will be a second round at a future time, unless a 41 vote for Halevi that was found in Yosef’s bin is approved.
We asked Religious Zionism Chairman Bezalel Smotrich what he was doing to elect a Zionist chief rabbi, seeing as the last one, the late Rabbi Avraham Elkana Kahana Shapira, left office in 1993.
Smotrich: I am obligated to my public and to the State of Israel that after 30 years we will, with God’s help, have a Zionist chief rabbi. We’ll have one Haredi Sephardi chief rabbi and one Zionist chief rabbi. I wanted very much to present a single candidate so that we could succeed, which is why I asked Rabbi Ariel to assemble a committee to choose one. Unfortunately, this did not succeed. Rabbi Ariel told me that he was unable to create a process at the end of which a single agreed-upon candidate would be chosen, with everyone standing behind him and with no other legitimate candidate in the running.
What should I do now? It’s a serious dilemma. But my goal remains to elect a religious Zionist chief rabbi. I will, God willing, decide in a few days as to the most appropriate candidate.
My job is not to qualify anyone, or give anyone a hechsher. Who am I? I aim to pick a proper candidate with the highest chance of getting elected. I want a national-religious chief rabbi who served in the army and has a nationalist worldview.
As of today (in mid-September) we have three candidates. I will do my inquiries and decide their electability.
THERE’S NOBODY HERE BUT US MAFDALNIKS
The historic NRP had 12 seats in two different Knesset elections. These days it appears that those who are under that umbrella will win 14 seats. However, the lion’s share of those will go to Otzma Yehudit, while Smotrich’s Religious Zionism is tittering in the polls just above the threshold vote.
We asked Smotrich what’s so difficult to expand the influence of Religious Zionism on the Israeli voters.
Smotrich: The late Uri Orbach (who was the force behind turning the NRP into Habayit Hayehudi) coined the adage that religious Zionism was too successful. In other words, we inscribed on our flag the value of integration.
The biggest tension in public life today is the sectoral nature of the people of Israel – which I am saying is not a contradiction, on the contrary, the stronger, the more cohesive we will be, with our commitment to our values, the more we’ll influence Israeli society.
But religious Zionism is spread all over the population. Even Otzma Yehudit does not define itself as a religious-Zionist party, although there are many religious Zionists in it.
The only party that declares itself to be religious Zionist is us.
There are no excuses: we held an open primary vote, if anyone thinks I’m not good enough, let them come and compete, it’s all good. If we actually included everyone considering themselves religious-Zionist, we’d be much bigger and able to expand the influence of our values.
It’s a process, I agree. Which means I have a lot of work ahead of me, to persuade those religious Zionists to return home.
Understand, the fact that religious Zionism is scattered across the political map is rooted in our education to be integrated, starting in kindergarten, school, high school yeshiva, the Ulpana (girls-only religious Zionist high school), and the youth movements.
We are not diminished, we are not enclosed, we don’t live in ghettoes. And so, religious Zionists in Likud will tell you, what’s your problem? I’m a religious Zionist integrated into the Likud party.
And I explain that there’s no contradiction.
Our entire existence is circles-around-circles-around-circles of belonging and affiliations. The nearest circle is family; then you have a community, city, public, state, nation, period, and generation, and from each circle we receive and to each circle we are obligated. Each circle creates in you a layer of identity and belonging, which creates responsibility, and commitment – circles. But there’s no contradiction among all those circles. Does my commitment to my family contradict my commitment to my community? It doesn’t. In fact, the more involved I am in my innermost circle, the better able am I to participate in the outer circles, influence but not assimilate.
That’s the difference between religious Zionism and everyone else: it brought us up to be involved, integrated, not assimilated. The only way to integrate without becoming assimilated is to guard yourself. And the great challenge of Religious Zionism is, out of its values, out of its integration, it now much contract. Everything in nature contracts and expands. There’s contraction – building the Holy Temple, and from it, there’s an expansion – to all of Israel.
This is why I believe Religious Zionism must contract now, as a political home with a clear identity, clear values, and clear commitments, and from there it will influence the Jewish people.
The Jewish people are at war now. Religious Zionists have answered the call at a disproportionate rate. And, unfortunately, they also fill up the rows in military cemeteries at disproportionate rates.
Where did all that come from? Where did it grow? It grew in hothouses – religious institutions, yeshivas. And how did those come into being? Through the religious Zionist public, without which we wouldn’t have had them. There won’t have been anyone to raise them to be dedicated, to carry out their mission, to sacrifice, to be so wonderfully united.
We asked if this included the followers of Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, and where are they now.
Smotrich: Where they are is a good question. We’re a small party and we need to grow. What’s the way to grow? Yes, we should try to bring everyone back home.
But we also must understand that there’s a great common denominator for all of us, and all the differences within us are minute. Our common denominator far exceeds our disagreements; and once we contract, we can then influence the entire nation of Israel. It’s not sectorial – unlike the Haredi sectarianism.
The Haredim are saying, we have our values, our needs, and our communities, all we want is our autonomy. We are very different – which is why everyone fears us. We endeavor to influence others – the Israeli public. We’re not saying, let’s hide away together, but let’s contract so that we can eventually reach the entire public.
US SANCTIONS AGAINST SETTLERS
Should the Democrats retain the White House, one feature of the Biden administration is likely to stay: pushing for a Palestinian State, and doing it, among other things, by applying pressure against the settler community, most notably the sanctions against individuals residing in Judea and Samaria for trumped up accusations of violence against local Arabs while none of them have seen the inside of a courtroom.
Smotrich: The sanctions are completely illegitimate in the context of a relationship between allied countries who have disagreements. They create the criminalization of disagreements – which is illegitimate.
There is a disagreement between us and the Democratic administration over Judea and Samaria. To turn it into a criminal thing, to use sanctions, is illegitimate.
That’s the message I delivered in no uncertain terms to the administration. I think it’s their way of compensating for the fact that they were so supportive of Israel during the first months after October 7, to appease their voters.
The same goes for the accusations of “settler violence,” a false campaign intended only to harm the State of Israel. No one abroad is making the distinction between Israeli settlers and non-settlers. It’s a campaign intended to smear Israel. To delegitimize it. And I’ve said I was saddened by the Biden administration’s towing this false line. It’s a blood libel.
What steps will he be taking?
Smotrich: First, we are in conversations with the administration to try and soften this as much as we can. We will continue to demand that the administration cancel these sanctions. And we are preparing here, in Israel, to deal with the consequences.
We can’t abandon our citizens. They’re Israeli citizens and their money is Israeli. I don’t wish to go into details, but we are putting together a set of tools to back those settlers and not leave them exposed.
I’m weighing a move to exclude from the list of individuals who may enjoy the government’s guarantees to Israeli banks doing business with, Palestinian Authority officials. These are individuals involved in illegal construction and other anti-Israel activities, and we would sever their access to banking.
We’re putting together a list of people and entities in a kind of mirror project: you think you can place sanctions on us, so we, too, will place sanctions on you.
When does he envision a solution for the sanctioned Jewish settlers?
Smotrich: First, you should know that they’ve all found solutions regarding their private lives. It’s a little less convenient, and a little more bureaucracy, but there’s no person today who cannot deposit his paycheck to buy food and pay the rent and so forth.
No credit cards yet. But following the assault by the US Treasury on them, there isn’t a single sanctioned individual who is unable to take care of his family.
And we will provide a more meaningful response eventually.
MAN OF THE YEAR
We always forget that our Man of the Year choice refers to the years that’s just ending and not the one being ushered in soon. Still, we asked our man of the year 5784 how he sees 5785.
Smotrich: The war we’re in, which is the longest and most expensive we’ve known (well, Israel’s War of Independence lasted from November 30, 1947, until July 20, 1949, but we get his point), must conclude with a victory.
Total victory in Gaza, which means the complete annihilation of Hamas and the release of the hostages; and victory over Hezbollah.
We are in a long and complex war, in which we are now paying the bill for some thirty years during which we avoided paying it.
For 30 years we didn’t want to pay the price of the war, so we fled – we fled to Oslo, we fled from Lebanon, we fled from Gush Katif, we hid behind walls and high fences, and even when we finally started a war, we left in the middle, because we weren’t prepared to pay the price. Now we are not allowed to leave in the middle, no matter how long it takes and how high the costs. To the end.
Because, God forbid, if it ends with less than that, we may as well have not done it at all.
The coming year will be, with God’s help, a year of completing our victory, at which point we will set Israel once again on an accelerated track of economic growth. I am certain we’ll see a big and swift rebound, and I’m doing my best as finance minister to make sure it’s done responsibly.
Two major events took place while this article was being edited: Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was eliminated, and Moody’s downgraded the Israeli government to its lowest point in history.
Nevertheless, I believe Minister Smotrich’s optimism is still strong as we head into 5785.
Smotrich: On the first day of the war, I declared a broad civilian policy, we took care of the evacuated, the survivors, the reservists, and the businesses, and on the other hand – exercised fiscal responsibility, which forces me to be unpopular, to make life difficult, and I will present a 2025 budget that stands up to the expectations so we can on the one hand support all the military efforts until the final victory, and on the other hand do it responsibly, lay down the foundations for growth after the war, but once again, the most important thing is victory.
Without victory, there’ll be no security, and without security, there’ll be no economy. So, next year will be a year of victory, God willing, and then the following year (that’s 5786 to you and me – DI) will be a year of growth.
And much of this growth will be in settlements (by which he means everywhere in Israel, including the north and the south – DI).
I want those Arabs who remain alive in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and Lebanon to see – you wanted to destroy our settlements? We’ll have a thousand times more settlements. A thousand times more Jews. A thousand times more Zionism. A thousand times more homes and roads and cars and businesses and industry and hi-tech.
Next year will be a year of victory, and the following a year of incredible growth and the development of the State of Israel. I’m optimistic, first because I believe in God, and I believe in the State of Israel and Israeli society.
I see the incredible life force emanating from the State of Israel. I see how the economy is behaving in a time of war – it’s a miracle. I look at the markets, the stock exchange, the jobs market. It’s a miracle. What’s the source of this miracle – beyond divine supervision – it’s the tremendous life force of Am Israel. They’re not afraid of wars, they’re used to them, and they continue to create and develop with initiatives and pioneer spirit and the Jewish head.
It’s working.
