In a significant escalation of rhetoric, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has publicly advocated for the migration of Palestinians from the West Bank and called for the formal cancellation of the Oslo Accords. Speaking at a meeting of his Religious Zionism party with settlement leaders near Ramallah on Tuesday, the far-right minister outlined his controversial vision labeled “Colonisation 2030.”
Smotrich declared that the Israeli government must “destroy the idea of an Arab terror state” and “encourage migration both from Gaza and from Judea and Samaria,” using the nationalist terminology for the West Bank. He emphatically stated that “there is no other long-term solution” while presenting his agenda at a local vineyard.
These remarks coincide with Israel’s advancement of plans to effectively extend annexed territories deeper into the West Bank. According to the Israeli anti-settlement organization Peace Now, the government recently approved a project to expand the illegal Adam settlement (also known as Geva Binyamin) northeast of occupied East Jerusalem. Though presented as a new “neighborhood,” the development would have no physical connection to the existing settlement and would instead extend Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries into the West Bank.
This expansion would mark the first formal extension of Israel’s boundaries deeper into West Bank territory since the 1967 occupation. Additionally, the security cabinet recently announced decisions to dramatically alter land registration and property acquisition procedures in the West Bank, a move condemned by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as “destabilizing” and “unlawful.”
Peace Now characterized these actions as “de facto annexation” and reported that Israel approved a record 54 settlements for 2025. Under international law, occupying powers are prohibited from undertaking land registration in occupied territories, with such processes widely viewed as tools for asserting sovereignty.
The recent measures expand Israel’s civil control in Areas A and B, regions that have officially been under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction since the Oslo Accords but contain all major Palestinian cities and towns.