Smotrich says next government should ‘encourage migration’ of Palestinians from West Bank

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says that he will work in his next term to “encourage migration” of Palestinians from the West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip.

The idea, which critics say amounts to ethnic cleansing, has been pushed repeatedly by far-right leaders, including Smotrich, in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, but has largely focused on Gaza.

Smotrich’s declaration represents a relatively rare instance of a senior Israeli politician expressing a desire to expand the controversial goal to the West Bank.

The minister makes the declaration at an event for his far-right Religious Zionism party, during which he lays out what he says should be the goals of the next government, including doing away with the 1990s-era Oslo Accords and applying Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank, a move akin to annexation.

“Destroy the idea of an Arab terror state; finally, formally and practically cancel the cursed Oslo Accords and get on the path of sovereignty, while encouraging the migration both from Gaza and from Judea and Samaria,” the biblical term for the West Bank, Smotrich says. “There is no other long-term solution.”

Smotrich draws applause from those in the room.

Elections are slated to be held by October. Smotrich’s party has consistently polled either near or below the electoral threshold.