Trump’s treasury secretary is about to make a catastrophically bad move on Israel
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s meeting with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich could imperil the Gaza ceasefire
Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich at a press conference in Tel Aviv on March 2, 2023. Photo by Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90
Hadar Susskind March 4, 2025
There are three good reasons why Scott Bessent, President Donald Trump’s secretary of the treasury, should cancel his planned meeting this week with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
First: Bessent’s embrace of Smotrich may complicate the Trump administration’s already difficult efforts to free more Israeli hostages by extending the ceasefire deal.
When the ceasefire was announced on the eve of his inauguration, Trump proudly took credit for the agreement, praising the deal as “EPIC” on social media. Smotrich, in contrast, is the most senior Israeli opponent of the ceasefire. He not only voted against it in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet; he continues to rail against the deal. Just last week he claimed that the ceasefire agreement will result in “rivers of blood.”
The planned Bessent-Smotrich meeting comes at a delicate moment. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is now actively engaged in the difficult task of helping steer Israel-Hamas negotiations to extend the ceasefire. Fifty-nine Israeli hostages remain in Gaza. And Israel announced Sunday that it was cutting off humanitarian aid to Gaza. The failure of these talks would likely spell a return to fighting and to the devastating scenes we all witnessed since the war started.
Second, Bessent must cancel his meeting with Smotrich because it risks emboldening Jewish terrorists who are actively trying to expand the war that Trump says he wants to stop. The meeting is already being spun in the Israeli press as a comeback for a divisive leader who promotes racism, extremism and violence.
This is not hyperbole. Just listen to Yitzhak Ilan, the former deputy director of Israel’s General Security Service, who described how security officials held Smotrich for three weeks in 2005 after foiling his plot to protest Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza with an act of terror.
“He is a terrorist. He’s Jewish, but he’s a terrorist,” Ilan explained in a 2019 TV interview. “He wanted to blow up cars on the Ayalon highway, at rush hour, with gasoline. We caught him with 700 liters of the stuff.”
Smotrich’s more recent rhetoric has been destructive. In 2023, after a Palestinian terrorist killed two Israelis, a mob of Jewish settlers rampaged through the West Bank village of Huwara. They torched homes and killed one innocent Palestinian.
Smotrich’s response? “I think that Huwara needs to be erased.” As if to try to moderate his pro-pogrom view, Smotrich went on to explain that he believes it is the Israeli government that should erase Huwara, not individual vigilantes.
And then there are his policy moves. He has used his position in Netanyahu’s government to seize record amounts of land in the West Bank. He has undermined Israeli law enforcement’s efforts to stop settler activity that violates Israeli law. He is actively working to have Israel annex the West Bank.
Finally, he famously painted Hamas as an “asset” to Israel, in contrast to the more moderate Palestinian leadership that is found in the Palestinian Authority, which he labeled a “liability.” He initially articulated this view before the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023. Perhaps today, Smotrich might pick his words more carefully. Nevertheless, the same reckless strategy of undermining any Palestinian leadership that could be an alternative to Hamas continues to animate his actions. See, for instance, his seizure of $90 million of Palestinian Authority funds two weeks ago.
With this pedigree, it’s no wonder that American leaders have always kept their distance. Two years ago, after Smotrich was sworn in as Israel’s finance minister, he came to the United States. Americans — including significant numbers of American Jews — spoke out against his visit and even asked President Joe Biden to deny him entry. Dozens of members of Congress — from the House and the Senate — called on Biden to sanction Smotrich in light of his record.
It is not too late for Bessent to see that his decision to meet with Smotrich risks shooting Trump’s foreign policy in the foot by hampering negotiations and emboldening Jewish terrorists in Israel. Those are reasons enough to cancel this meeting.
There is a final reason to cancel this meeting, which I understand may not carry much weight with the Trump administration. But I know that it still matters to me and to many of us. I still believe that the United States should stand for justice, democracy and for peace. When our government rolls out the red carpet to a man like Smotrich, it betrays those values. It stains the very essence of our country. American values demand better — and so should we.
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