In another post on X on Wednesday afternoon, Smotrich stated that he had just left a meeting at the White House but did not disclose whom he met with.

Smotrich leads Israel's far-right Religious Zionism Party and serves as a minister in Israel’s Defense Ministry, where he has significant authority over the Civil Administration and Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, which supervises Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.   

The finance minister has opposed a ceasefire in Gaza and has called for Israel to occupy the Strip. He is also a vocal opponent of the Palestinian Authority — the Palestinian government body that partially controls the West Bank — which he accuses of funding terrorism. Smotrich has called for sanctions and penalties on the PA and, as finance minister, has on multiple occasions withheld tens of millions of dollars from the authority. Just last month, he signed an order to seize roughly $90 million in PA tax revenues frozen by Israel and allegedly transferred them to Israeli families whose members were killed in attacks by Palestinians.

Smotrich is also a fierce advocate for and heavily involved in Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank. Just after Donald Trump’s victory in November, Smotrich said that the US election results opened up an opportunity for an Israeli annexation of the West Bank and announced that he had directed the Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration “to begin comprehensive, professional groundwork to prepare the necessary infrastructure for applying sovereignty” in the West Bank.  

The UN estimates that well over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, while more than 3 million Palestinians live there. The international and legal communities widely consider the Israeli settlements illegal and in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and several other UN resolutions. The United States held the same position until 2019, when Trump — in his first term — reversed the decades-held stance that settlements violated international law. The Biden administration restored the United States' previous stance in 2024.

Israel’s extreme right was kept at arms' length by the Biden administration. In March 2023, Smotrich visited Washington for a meeting with leaders from major Jewish organizations. Not a single US official met with the minister, and the administration reportedly considered denying Smotrich a diplomatic visa but ultimately granted the visa. Now the door seems to be wide open for Smotrich. In keeping with his first-term policy, Trump is embracing Israel’s far right. 

On his first day in office, in what seemed to be a gesture to Israeli ultranationalists, Trump revoked Biden-era sanctions on West Bank settlers accused of violence against Palestinians. Smotrich, along with other far-right Israeli politicians, praised the move.  

Asked on Feb. 5 about whether his administration would support an Israeli annexation of the West Bank, Trump said in a press conference that “we haven’t been taking a position on it yet” but that he’d likely be “making an announcement” on the issue in the following four weeks.  

Rina Bassist contributed to this report.