This week marks a fateful juncture in Israel’s prosecution of the war against Hamas in Gaza.
The Israeli government has voted to call up tens of thousands of reservists for an extended military operation with the intention of occupying wide swathes of the Gaza Strip. The government continues to insist—contrary to all evidence, including the testimonies of released hostages—that military operations will not endanger the remaining hostages. And Prime Minister Netanyahu has explicitly and publicly defined bringing home the remaining 59 hostages as secondary to the supreme objective: “total victory” against Hamas.
Bezalel Smotrich is now urging Israelis to embrace “occupation,” both the term and concept.
Israel faces enormously complex challenges, as it balances the necessity of returning the hostages with the necessity of defeating Hamas and ensuring that its security is never again violated as it was on October 7.
But permanent Israeli occupation of the entire Gaza Strip is not in the U.S.’ interest, or Israel’s. If current trends are not arrested, Bezalel Smotrich’s vision—of occupation, settlement, displacement, and annexation in both Gaza and the West Bank—will prevail.
That dangerous vision will only create more conflict, more threats to Israel’s security, more challenges to Israel’s legitimacy in the international arena, more tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and more fissures in the United States—across the political spectrum—that strain the U.S.-Israel relationship.
At Israel Policy Forum, we are calling for a different vision.
One in which the United States utilizes its leadership position to advance core American interests, including a more secure, stable, peaceful, and prosperous future for Israel and its neighbors, by:
- Prioritizing efforts to negotiate the release of the 59 hostages in Hamas captivity and an end to the conflict in Gaza.
- Recruiting regional and international support to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of Gazans, and to set a foundation for the reconstruction and interim administration of Gaza with new security arrangements that address Israel’s clear security needs and prevent the rearming and resurgence of Hamas.
- Demanding and incentivizing long-overdue reforms to the Palestinian Authority to set in motion the fundamental changes needed if Palestinian governance is to succeed in the West Bank and eventually return to Gaza.
- Concluding a historic Israel-Saudi normalization deal that would create enormous opportunities for both countries and reshape Israel’s relations with Arab and Muslim states, and the trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
At this critical juncture, a choice has to be made: Smotrich’s vision or American interests.
At Israel Policy Forum, we stand alongside the vast majority of Israelis who believe that a release of the hostages must be prioritized. Defeating Hamas is critical, but military defeat alone will not be sufficient to achieve long-term security.
We encourage President Trump in his visit to the region next week to press for a hostage deal and ceasefire that can launch a new chapter for the region, and bring Israel back from the precipice.
Israel Policy Forum will continue to be a resource for policymakers, providing research and analysis that emphasizes the opportunities to advance American interests. Our community programs will continue to create a platform for elevating the discourse about these issues with nuance that is too often missing. In all of this work, we will continue to be guided by our core values, principles, and vision: a secure, Jewish, democratic Israel.
While the skies on the horizon are getting darker, we will continue to work toward seeing the dawn.
