Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently dismissed the need to “normalize relations” with Saudi Arabia, saying that if the price of that normalization was for Israel to accept a “Palestinian state,” then Israel should reject it, saying: “If Saudi Arabia tells us ‘normalization in exchange for a Palestinian state,’ friends — no thank you. Keep riding camels in the desert in Saudi Arabia, and we will continue to develop with the economy, society and state and the great things that we know how to do.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was apoplectic when he heard about Smotrich’s speech, fearing it would damage the possibility of normalization of ties with Saudi Arabia. So did many other Israelis, but by no means all. There are many Israelis who agree with Smotrich, and fail to see what is so wonderful about this “normalization” of ties with Saudi Arabia if it requires Israel to give up territory — Judea, Samaria, and east Jerusalem — to which it is entitled, first, by 3500 years of a continuous Jewish presence on that land; second, by the League of Nations’ Mandate for Palestine, that intended for the future Jewish state to include all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea; and third, by UN Security Council Resolution 242, adopted on November 22, 1967, that according to its author Lord Caradon recognized Israel’s right to hold onto any territory it won in the Six-Day War that it needed if it was to have “secure and defensible borders.”
Now Smotrich has again criticized Saudi Arabia for its denial of Jewish history and Jewish rights. More on his speech, delivered to a meeting of his Religious Zionist Party, can be found here: “Smotrich claims Saudi Arabia denies Israeli tradition and heritage, doubling down on Riyadh row,” Jerusalem Post, October 27, 2025:
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich again attacked Saudi Arabia during a Religious Zionist Party (RZP) faction meeting in the Knesset on Monday, claiming that Riyadh “denies our tradition and our heritage.”
Smotrich caused a diplomatic stir last week after telling the Saudis to “keep riding camels in the Saudi desert” if they condition normalization with Israel on a demand to establish a Palestinian state.
“My statement about Saudi Arabia was certainly not successful, and I regret the offense it caused,” Smotrich said in a filmed apology shared on social media on Thursday. “However, at the same time, I expect the Saudis not to harm us and not to deny the heritage, tradition, and rights of the Jewish people.
“We have survived 77 years without Saudi Arabia, we can survive 77 more without it,” he stated.
During Monday’s press conference, the finance minister hit out against Saudi Arabia once again, as well as Israelis who they said were “insulted” on the Saudis’ behalf.
“These incidents are a thousand times more insulting than an ill-advised comment by a finance minister,” Smotrich said in response to a question by a reporter for Israel’s public broadcaster, KAN News.
Smotrich lamented the lack of outrage among the Israeli public for what he called an “insult to our soldiers, our children and brothers…when Saudis discuss a Palestinian state, they deny our heritage, our tradition, our history, the Bible…Judea and Samaria is at the heart of Judaism and Jewish history.”…
He is correct. Jewish history was made over 3500 years in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, not in Haifa and Tel Aviv. This history, this heritage, these traditions mean nothing to Saudi Arabia. It is indifferent to the Jewish people, and would not mind seeing Israel disappear, to be replaced by a 23rd Arab state.
In Smotrich’s view, Israel should not be running after Saudi Arabia, offering to give up land to which the Jewish state is entitled, in order to create a Palestinian state whose creation will lead the Saudis to “normalize relations.” Smotrich rejects this view; he insists that Saudi Arabia is no friend, or potential friend, of the Jewish state. Saudi Arabia routinely insists that the Jewish state can exist only if it agrees to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, which would not only strip Israel of control of the Jordan Valley, so necessary to its defense, but also leave it with a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea. Within such lines — what Abba Eban described as the “lines of Auschwitz” — Israel would be hopelessly vulnerable; it could be cut in two by an invader from the east within a matter of hours. No Israeli government could possibly agree to such an outcome. After the Hamas atrocities carried out on October 7, more than 80% of Israelis now oppose a Palestinian state.
For there to be any further movement in Gaza to fulfill the Trump plan, Hamas must disarm. Not disarm partly, giving up only heavy weapons, but disarm completely, and cease to govern Gaza, its misrule — the corruption, the mismanagement, the misallocation of resources — to be replaced by Arab technocrats capable of assuming the responsibilities of rule.
Bezalel Smotrich is right to raise the issue: just what is so wonderful about “normalization of relations” with Saudi Arabia that would cause Israel to agree to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines — they were never recognized borders — and thereby giving up the most historic part of its territorial heritage, and endangering its security? Saudi Arabia is uninterested in Jewish history, indifferent to the 3500-year claim of the Jews to their tiny land, and willing to embrace the fiction of a “Palestinian people” with a claim to Judea and Samaria supposedly equal to that of the Jews.
Let’s not go running after the ghutra-and-thobed billionaires in Riyadh, says Smotrich. A little dignity, please. Saudi Arabia’s entire claim to the world’s attention is based not on any achievements of its people, but only because it happens to sit on billions of barrels of oil which Westerners discovered, produced, and distributed. An accident of geology. The more Israel runs after the Saudis, in Smotrich’s view, the more they will play hard to get. We don’t need Saudi Arabia, Smotrich insists. Saudi Arabia, if it wants to withstand the threat to it from an aggressive Iran, and from Iran’s proxy on the Saudi border, the Houthis of Yemen, has more need of us.
Smotrich, along with Ben Gvir, is routinely vilified as a “far-right extremist” and therefore beyond the pale. But in his view of Saudi Arabia, which he criticizes for paying no heed to Jewish history, and tradition, he is right… on the money.
Mel says
Agreed 110%.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
While I don’t completely dismiss Bezalel Smotrich’s statement, I do think there is a case to be made for Israel quietly winning over different Arab countries in different stages. 2019 it was Emirates, Bahrein and Morocco (still doubtful about how genuine Sudan’s agreement was), next could be other countries like Oman and Haftar’s regime in Libya, and at some point, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, as well as a reinforcement of the statements from Egypt and Jordan. I think it’s safe to rule out Qatar and Kuwait
There’s another small fact that in Saudi Arabia, while MbS is the de-facto ruler, King Salman, his father, is on record as saying that Riyadh won’t normalize ties until there is a Pali state. Which is where this Saudi stance comes from: it’s not an MbS policy. Whenever the last of those sons of Ibn Saud croaks, then MbS will be at liberty to declare anything he wants
I think Smotrich would have done better ranting against Qatar, Turkey and Kuwait. Maybe even Egypt and Jordan
Carol says
Bibi must go. He has gone from being useful, to being a detriment to the Judaic cause for which this country was created by the League of Nations. I’ll leave it there
The Mayor says
Smotrich is correct. What concerns me, is that Pres. Trump has made a deal with SA and Qatar, which is selling out Israel, to them. Allow hamas to survive? No annexation of Judea and Samaria? What is Trump getting in return for selling out Israel?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Trillions in investments and arms deals from countries that don’t owe their citizens much, due to how few native people they actually have
Billy says
Israel should follow their own plans because Islam and the 50+ Muslim States are Terrorist States of discrimination, violence, and terrorism against Israel, America, and all Non-Muslims as revealed in Islam’s Quran(Quran 9:5, 29, 111, etc.). Western Leaders can never be trusted because they are islamizing their countries to gain ultimate totalitarian power and control.
Allah’s Islam, a CRIMINAL-TERRORIST-GANG ENTERPRISE and a MURDEROUS-DEMONIC CULT OF BELIEVERS, Terrorist Muslim Soldiers for demonic Allah, continually fund, promote, and practice ideological subversion, propaganda, bigotry, discrimination, deceit, industrial-scale slavery, human trafficking, intimidation, supremacy, segregation, hatred, incitement to violence, criminality, genocide, victimhood, censorship, and terrorism as taught in Islamic Law, Sharia, and in Islam’s Qur’an(Qur’an 5:14,35; 8:60; 9:41, 88, etc.).
Allah stirs hatred against Christians until the resurrection day when Qur’an 5:14 instructs, “And some of those who say, ‘Surely we are Nasara (Christians),’ we took their covenant. So they have forgotten a part of what they were reminded of, so we have stirred up ENMITY and HATRED among them until the resurrection day. And Allah will inform them of what they were doing.” (See also Qur’an 60:4).
As taught by Allah, Muslims are supremacist terrorists for Allah with their MONEY and their LIVES. Allah in Qur’an 49:15 states, “Surely the believers[Muslims] are only those who believed in Allah and his messenger. They do not doubt, and they performed jihad with their MONEY and their LIVES for the sake of Allah. Those are the truthful.” Allah in Qur’an 4:101 says, “…Surely the infidels(Non-Muslims) were your clear enemies.”
ALLAH’S MUSLIMS are a greater TERROR than diabolical Allah. Allah in Qur’an 59:13 says, “You[Muslims] are a greater terror in their chests than Allah. This is because they[Jews & Christians] are people who do not understand.” Islam must be banned as illegal, and we have the legal right to defend ourselves from Muslim violence. As a result, Non-Muslims are marked for death by Islam and its Muslims. Allah in Qur’an 9:29 commands, “Engage in war with those who do not believe in Allah nor in the last day. Nor forbid what Allah and his messenger forbid, nor believe in the religion of the truth among those who have given the book until they pay the jizyah out of hand and they are subdued.”
OLD GUY says
The war of words and the war of blood will continue with Islam’s blessing and un-acceptance of all other religions and non muslim people. Islam teaches this hate for others across the board in their mosques world wide. In their eye it’s them or us, and their plan is to make it us.