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← Ministers' Own Words

Other Ministers and Lawmakers on the Record

Smotrich and Ben Gvir get the headlines, but they are not alone. The whole-land claim, and since 2024 the claim to new ground in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, comes from the defense minister, the justice minister, the settlements minister, the Knesset speaker, the heritage minister, the education minister, and Likud lawmakers, and on the West Bank from the leading opposition figures too. This page gathers them, portfolio by portfolio, with sources. The Knesset is Israel's 120-seat parliament.

Israel Katz, defense minister​

  • Golan and Syria, September 2026, answering Syria's president Ahmed al-Sharaa: "The Golan is part of Israel forever. We will not withdraw from Mount Hermon & the security zone to prevent threats from the jihadists of yours and your backers. If we come under attack from Syria, we will retaliate" (Zeina Khodr on X, 23 September 2026). The Times of Israel rendered it as the Golan being "an integral, eternal part of Israel" (Times of Israel liveblog, September 2026). Another rendering adds: "any area we control will belong to us forever" (dana on X, 23 September 2026).
  • Lebanon, March 2026: residents of southern Lebanon would not return "until security for the residents of the north [of Israel] is ensured" (Times of Israel, 24 March 2026).
  • June 2026, as rendered on X search pages: the army "will not withdraw" from "security zones" in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, held "without a time limit."
  • Gaza, 2026: Katz suggested Gaza's population "should eventually be concentrated into a dystopian 'humanitarian city,' built on the ruins of Rafah," from which no one could leave unless they emigrate, as a New York Times opinion piece described it (New York Times opinion, 8 June 2026).
  • West Bank, May 2025: Katz and Smotrich stated that a security cabinet decision on land registration was "designed to expand and further entrench the presence of the settlements" as part of "de facto sovereignty" steps (Times of Israel, 19 February 2026).

Orit Strook, settlements minister​

"The entire Land of Israel is ours and we are its, and for this reason there will not be a Palestinian state in the Land of Israel because there is no such thing as a Palestinian people, there is no such nation" (Quds News Network on X, 20 February 2024, 2.2 million views). She has predicted "full sovereignty over Gaza within 10 years" (Masi on X, 12 February 2026, compilation).

Yariv Levin, justice minister​

"We need to be in Gaza because this is our land, the land of Israel and the Jewish people, and only the Jewish people," and "security can only be achieved where there's Jewish settlements" (as compiled by Masi on X, 12 February 2026). On the 2018 Nation-State Law: "Zionism's flagship bill... A country that is different from all others in one way, that it is the nation-state of the Jewish people" (Vanguard Online).

Amir Ohana, Knesset speaker​

During the July 2025 annexation motion: "In 1967, the occupation did not begin; it ended, and our homeland was returned to its rightful owners" (Times of Israel, 23 July 2025). At Smotrich's Ma'oz Tzur speech in April 2026: "This is our land. We are not here as guests; we are not here temporarily" (JNS, 11 April 2026).

Amichai Eliyahu, heritage minister​

He shared a post promoting a shirt reading "Occupation Now" with a map including the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, and the Golan, captioned "The people demand occupation—occupation now." His spokesperson did not respond to Misbar; Netanyahu's office declined to comment (Misbar, 3 December 2024). In November 2023 he spoke of an "atomic bomb on Gaza," and in January 2024 of "ways for Gazans that are more painful than death" (Shaiel Ben-Ephraim on X, 25 August 2026; Grok on X, 23 September 2026).

May Golan, social equality minister​

At the October 2024 Gaza settlement conference: "Taking territory from them is what hurts them most" (Times of Israel, 21 October 2024).

Education, diaspora, energy, agriculture​

  • Yoav Kisch, education minister, 7 July 2024, on a war with Hezbollah: "Lebanon, as we know, will not exist" (Middle East Eye on X, 7 July 2024).
  • Amichai Chikli, diaspora affairs minister (Likud), the day Assad fell: "Israel must urgently renew its control over the peak of Mount Hermon" (Amichai Chikli on X, 8 December 2024). Israel took the peak within days.
  • Eli Cohen, energy minister, on West Bank measures: "there will not be a Palestinian state" (Masi on X, 12 February 2026).
  • Avi Dichter, agriculture minister: "I think that we are going to stay in Gaza for a long time... maybe you remain along Netzarim [corridor]" (as quoted by Chris Hedges on X, 7 January 2025).

Diplomats and lawmakers​

  • Gilad Erdan, then ambassador to the UN, the day before leaving office in August 2024, affixed a mezuzah "in the shape of the complete Land of Israel," fulfilling a promise to the chairman of the Yesha settlers' council, "to remind everyone who comes here for a meeting that the Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel, including Judea and Samaria" (Gilad Erdan on X, 19 August 2024, Hebrew, 122,700 views). See The Map at Home.
  • Tzipi Hotovely, ambassador to the UK, as quoted by Peter Reynolds: "The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of Greater Israel..." (Peter Reynolds on X, 22 September 2026); the same sentence opens the government's 2022 guidelines, which say "the Land of Israel." See The 2022 Guidelines.
  • Israel's UN envoy, August 2026: "We are not an occupation, nor settlers" (SilencedSirs on X, 12 August 2026), even as ministers approve new settlements.
  • Yitzhak Kroizer, Otzma Yehudit MK, March 2026: "There's no choice but to expel and clear out the area up to the Litani River… sovereignty and settlement," and "There is room for one nation between the river and the sea, the Jewish nation" (BZKanging on X, 22 March 2026).
  • Eighteen Knesset members, 5 April 2026, pressed the government "to occupy and fully control southern Lebanon up to the Litani River and 'evacuate' the Lebanese population there" (The Conversation, 8 April 2026).
  • MK Zvi Sukkot destroyed a Palestinian memorial in the village of Madama; the army called his conduct "deceptive and manipulative" (Shaiel Ben-Ephraim on X, 25 August 2026).
  • An unnamed minister to Sky News, December 2023: "We live here, this is our country. The historical estate of our ancestors. There will be no Palestinian state here. We will never allow another state to be established between the Jordan & the sea" (Mark Stone on X, 12 December 2023, 1.3 million views).
  • Earlier ministers, as JTA and DAWN recorded: Uri Ariel in 2014, "Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea there will be only one state, which is Israel," and in 2016, "There are not two states west of the Jordan. And the Temple Mount is ours!"; Gideon Sa'ar, now foreign minister, in 2020: "Between the Jordan River and the sea there won't be another independent state" (JTA, 8 November 2023; DAWN, 27 September 2024).

The opposition agrees on the West Bank​

  • Gadi Eisenkot, former army chief of staff, polling ahead of Netanyahu in August 2026: "I am against the establishment of a Palestinian state" (shameen suleman on X, 26 August 2026).
  • Naftali Bennett, former prime minister, October 2023: "Between the River and the Sea…is Israel" (Naftali Bennett on X, 29 October 2023, 830,000 views).
  • Yair Lapid, opposition leader, February 2026: "the biblical borders of Israel are very clear," "As broad as possible." See Lapid's Biblical Borders.

As the journalist Mehdi Hasan put it in December 2023: "Israeli ministers keep saying out loud, again and again, that there won't be a two state solution. And yet elected Democrats here keep pretending there will be" (Mehdi Hasan on X, 12 December 2023, 677,000 views).

Evidence rating for "the whole-land claim and the claim to new ground are held across Israel's cabinet and much of its opposition": CONFIRMED.

Status: Israel Katz, Orit Strook, Yariv Levin, Amir Ohana, Amichai Eliyahu, May Golan, Yoav Kisch, Amichai Chikli, Eli Cohen, Avi Dichter, Gilad Erdan, Tzipi Hotovely, Yitzhak Kroizer, Zvi Sukkot, Uri Ariel, Gideon Sa'ar, Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and Mehdi Hasan are alive. Nothing on this page states that any of them committed a crime.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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