As four more American families grieve the deaths of soldiers killed in the war on Iran, one of the top-ranking ministers in Israel’s cabinet told an Israeli audience that having America do all the fighting and dying is “the best for us.” Israel had intensely lobbied President Trump to launch a joint war on Iran on Feb 22, and traded blows with Iran up until early June. Since Trump restarted intense, daily bombardment of Iran 11 days ago, however, Israel has sat out the action, sparing Israelis from lethal Iranian retaliation.
“The State of Israel has no interest in joining the contained confrontation between Iran and the United States,” far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a session at the Katif Conference for National Responsibility, which endorses Jewish settlement in Palestinian territories. “The current situation is the best one for us.”
Smotrich is generally regarded as the second-most powerful cabinet member in Israel, and is a vital linchpin in Netanyahu’s government that took power in January 2023. Lacking an outright majority, Netanyahu was forced to build a ruling coalition that gives unprecedented power to religious and ultra-nationalist extremists. Smotrich leads the Religious Zionism party. He personally aspires to make Israel a theocracy, wants Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza while barring most Palestinians from citizenship, and has said it would be “just and moral” to starve two million Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza.
In his latest remarks, Smotrich candidly acknowledged that Israel and the United States have different goals vis a vis Iran, but said America’s continued military engagement furthers the Israeli agenda. “[We] must remember that the ultimate goal of Israel, and not necessarily the United States, is to undermine and weaken the regime in Iran – to the point of overthrowing it,” Smotrich said.