Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich gestures toward a map of the West Bank during a press conference at the Finance Ministry in Jerusalem, September 3, 2025.
Sam Sokol – Times of Israel Sept 17, 2025
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday said that the Gaza Strip was a potential real estate “bonanza” and that he was in talks with the United States on how to divide up the coastal enclave after the war, once again making clear his desire to transform the enclave into Israeli territory.
Speaking at a real estate conference in Tel Aviv, the minister said the opportunity “pays for itself,” and he has “already started negotiations with the Americans.”
Palestinians and much of the international community strenuously insist that the enclave must be governed by a Palestinian body after the war and reject the idea of Israeli or US occupation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said he does not intend to reestablish Israeli settlements in the Strip, while his far-right allies have talked up their vision of pushing Palestinians out and building Israeli communities on the land.
“We have paid a lot of money for this war. We have to see how we are dividing up the land in percentages,” Smotrich said, adding that “the demolition, the first stage in the city’s renewal, we have already done. Now we need to build.”
He added, “There is a business plan, put together by the most professional people here, that is on President Trump’s desk.”
Officials in the White House and US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In an interview with his Religious Zionism party’s Ofek weekend newsletter last month, Smotrich said he was working to reestablish the former Israeli settlements of Ganim and Kadim in the northern West Bank, both of which were evacuated and dismantled during Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, when it withdrew all of its settlers and soldiers.
Trump’s vision of a future Gaza – without Palestinians. Click to enlarge
In July, he spoke at a Knesset conference called “The Gaza Riviera – from vision to reality,” at which participants presented plans for reestablishing Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. There, he said that Gaza would become an “inseparable part of the State of Israel.”
In May, he said the population of the territory would be confined to just a narrow swath of land, with the remainder of the enclave “totally destroyed.”
Smotrich claimed in July that his vision has US President Donald Trump’s backing. Trump in February said the US would take over Gaza, relocate its residents, and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Trump’s plans have been rejected by the Palestinians, the Arab world and most of the international community, in addition to officials from both parties in the US. Trump himself has also placed less focus on such plans after his initial comments.
But last month, The Washington Post reported that the proposal was apparently not quite dead. The report said the Trump administration was weighing a proposal for the postwar reconstruction of Gaza that would put the Strip under US control for a decade and pay roughly a quarter of its population to relocate, many of them permanently.
In addition, Smotrich on Wednesday rejected Netanyahu’s statement earlier this week that Israel was facing increasing isolation and may be required to become a self-reliant economy with “autarkic characteristics” and a kind of “super-Sparta.”
“I do not agree with the prime minister’s words, and I really did not like the comparison to Sparta,” the finance minister said.
Netanyahu’s comments sparked fierce criticism from opposition heads and business leaders and were followed by a dip in the value of shares on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
In response, the prime minister said on Tuesday that he had “full confidence” in the Israeli economy and sought to clarify that his comments were focused on the defense industries rather than the broader economy.
Some of the biggest names in music, film and culture will unite on Wednesday for Together For Palestine, a one-night concert at London’s OVO Arena Wembley in aid of humanitarian work in Gaza.
The Together For Palestine Fund will channel every penny raised to Choose Love, which will distribute the money to groups including Taawon, the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and the Palestine Medical Relief Service.
Pressure is being put on the government to stop supporting the genocide
please help us if you can, those of us who have volunteered to help the sick and wounded have come home traumatised
news early today
Gaza children’s hospital struck as Israel deploys new bombs
Story by Nedal Hamdouna and Bel Trew
Israeli terrorists are using remotely detonated explosive-laden armoured personnel carriers, described by Palestinians as “giant robot bombs”, as they advance deeper into Gaza City.
These “suicide APCs” are reportedly outdated M113 models rigged with tonnes of explosives, used to reduce Israeli soldier casualties and destroy large buildings, with their deployment reportedly tripled.
The offensive has resulted in many deaths in 24 hours and struck al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital, Gaza’s only specialist facility for children.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain trapped in Gaza City, unable to afford evacuation or fearing new routes through Israeli military positions, despite mass evacuation orders.
Those trying to leave have been subjected to sniper attacks
International condemnation is mounting, with a UN investigation concluding Israel is committing genocide, calls for a ceasefire from the Pope, and proposed EU sanctions.
I made so many friends when i was out there
please god save these people
Nutenyahu must be arrested and stand trial.
Actually he’s gonna get schooled in the particulars (and whoever said the devil is in the details was right on ) it’s NOT going to “pays for itself”. That vultures are circling is a given, but a holding pattern must first be established, and he’s NOT IN THAT YET. First, Bibi’s gonna need replacing soon, and it’s gonna take a mighty BIG asshole for that…
LOL…
so much to unpack….
The best of it being the Sparta reference from the jug eared comb over… of course the EL–eets have always admired the Spartans and their system of war and feminism and slavery..the pirate rock public school ‘system’ is based on it..and that being buggery and servitude.. generally to women…
It’s common knowledge most of the ‘Brit-ish’ establishment get regularly pegged by their horse face wives.. when they aren’t being arrested for being a pedophile…
The Spartans were Phoenician descendants and claimed it from Heracles so Near Eastern Greeks and not Balkan Greeks..something that wont have passed by a yiddin like Benny and his assault on Canaan and Phoenicia…
But as with most post modernist mind cancer, one is left with a parody of the original, and jewe inversion..
where lol, the Gaza slaughter is, in Benny’s mind, a few hundred noble Greek warriors holding back Xerxes hordes..at Thermopylae..
it’s quite obvious that jewes need to be stripped of everything they own ..including the myths they appropriated on their wanderings and then isolated from the human race in perpetuum , preferably in a deep underground bunker under the Atlantic ocean….they can keep Yawee..
for company..
Whites better start focusing on their own demographic decline & impending Whiteocide within their own nations, instead of on these Palestinian/Israeli commie mongrels all the time.
Amazing Nico X prediction made days after Oct 7 hoax/black op coming true:
“An agreement/arrangement was made between the Israelis & Palestinians. We will give you new prosperous lives in the West in exchange for evacuating the Gaza real estate, so we can demolish these slums & construct new developments. This couldn’t have been achieved diplomatically because the Palestinians would look bad i.e, simply exchanging their ‘precious land’ for money & a better life in the West managing mini marts, gas stations & ‘grooming gangs’. Ergo the phony hoax ‘war’ & ‘genocide’ now going on to cover up the devious transfer scheme & generate more wog pity from mush brained whites.”
And still no columnist post offers.
Likud knew it from beginning that they can
do it under the eyes of dumbass western corrupt
leadership best example the german dumbasses .
ICJ/Interpol/UNO + many more lawsystems are
powerless against this criminal gang but when you
kill one enemy they hunt you around the globe . to
kill thousands you have to be a very well respected VIP .
Golden Goldberg says:
Why so much fuss?
Palestinians are only two-legged animals, so says our holy Talmud.
When we are finished with them, we will come for you. Meanwhile, keep supporting Israel.
@ “cassandra simpson” aka Nico X
Quote: “Ergo the phony hoax ‘war’ & ‘genocide’ now going on to cover up the devious transfer scheme & generate more wog pity from mush brained whites.”
Now there’s the revolting nazi psychopathy that I have made my life mission of exposing. Calling the deaths of over 200,000 innocents (and counting) “a hoax” shows the true bottomless pit of your disgusting character: one of pure darkness and filth.
Rixon Stewart is an admirable champion of free speech. You’re lucky, pal. If I ran this site, I would IP block you, and any other addresses you used, in a blink of eye … literally i.e. in 0.3 seconds. I have ZERO tolerance for nazi pieces of garbage and their filth.
Nico X–what is stopping you setting up your own web-site and not piggy-backing on this one?
@J (u)
“..as the cockroach said to the Elephant, before he was crushed underfoot..”
That festering shit wad Smotrich has Eastern European organized crime scum written all over him, except much worse and much deeper in the sewer. The abjectly evil demon can’t be beaten to a pulp and fed into a wood chipper soon enough…after being forced to watch his entire ill-bred family suffer the same fate first.