If Saudi Arabia demands a Palestinian state as the price for normalization with Israel, it can “keep riding camels in the Saudi desert,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Thursday.
Israel is standing at a “historic crossroads,” and Jerusalem should decouple regional ties from “the false Gordian knot” of the Palestinian issue, he said at a conference in Jerusalem.
“There is no – and there will never be – a Palestinian government,” the leader of the Religious Zionism Party said. “We are advancing peace agreements with those who can live with that [a reality in which there is no Palestinian state]. There is real feasibility to expand the Abraham Accords and realize their economic, security, and geostrategic potential.”
The government is moving ahead with “de facto sovereignty” in Judea and Samaria, Smotrich said.
“In this term, we are doing something that has not happened in decades in Judea and Samaria,” he said, adding that the application of Israeli authority and policies there is the barometer, or test, by which outside proposals should be judged.
“If Saudi Arabia says normalization in exchange for a Palestinian state, friends, no thank you,” he said. “Keep riding camels in the sands of the desert in Saudi Arabia. We will continue to develop our society, economy, and state, and all the wonderful things we know how to do.”
Smotrich remains undeterred in face of international pressure to recognize Palestine.
Regarding international pressure, Smotrich dismissed penalties imposed by foreign governments.
“Sanctions do not move me,” he said. “I do not fly for trips to London.”
Nevertheless, Smotrich cautioned against rejecting every initiative out of hand, citing the Israeli Right’s “post-trauma” when seeing ceremonies on the White House lawn as potential preludes to terrorist attacks.
“We must be sharp and clear that it will not go there, because many of the states involved see this as a route to a Palestinian state,” he said. “On the other hand, we should not say no to everything.”
Smotrich reiterated that any diplomatic framework leading to Palestinian statehood is a nonstarter. Normalization should proceed only with partners prepared to accept Israel’s position.
Expanding the Abraham Accords, which normalized ties with several Arab states beginning in 2020, remains possible without advancing Palestinian sovereignty, Smotrich said.