A month before elections, Smotrich bets on escalation to survive

Qatar on Tuesday denounced "Israeli statements regarding the annexation of areas in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip," calling them "a flagrant challenge to international law and legitimate international resolutions," according to a statement from its Foreign Ministry. Doha urged the international community to compel Israel to halt what it described as expansionist plans.

The statement followed remarks made Sunday by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who called for annexing Gaza up to the so-called "Yellow Line », the boundary marking roughly 60% of the Strip currently under Israeli military control, and southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, Israel's unofficial buffer-zone line.

"I would like us to annex at least as far as the yellow line in Gaza and as far as the Litani River in Lebanon, because if a war ends along the same lines where it began, what will deter the enemy from going to war again?" Smotrich said on a podcast for Israeli news site Ynet. He also called for the Israeli military to "go to war" in the occupied West Bank, using tactics similar to those deployed in Gaza, and to dismantle the Palestinian Authority.

A pattern of provocation, not a first occurrence

This is far from an isolated remark. Smotrich made a nearly identical call to annex southern Lebanon back in March, and has long championed annexing the entire West Bank as leader of the Religious Zionist Party.

The timing and tone of Smotrich's remarks are widely read as an attempt to shore up a political base that has been steadily eroding.

Multiple polls in recent months have shown his Religious Zionist Party hovering at or below Israel's 3.25% electoral threshold, the minimum required to enter the Knesset at all.

An August Jerusalem Post-commissioned poll showed his party failing to cross that threshold following the entry of a rival far-right figure, Ofer Winter, into the race; other surveys since have shown Smotrich only narrowly clearing the bar.

Pollster Menachem Lazar noted that Winter's new party appeals to much of the same voter base that has historically sustained Smotrich's support.

Within Netanyahu's coalition, Smotrich has increasingly become a marginal and polarizing figure, his hardline positions on the West Bank and settlement expansion drawing friction even with allies as Israel's attorney general has moved to delay a contentious settlement tender ahead of the election, a decision Smotrich publicly accused of "interfering in the election campaign."

Should his party fail to clear the electoral threshold on October 27, Smotrich would lose his Knesset seat entirely, ending his ministerial career and removing one of the most consistently inflammatory voices from Israel's governing coalition, an outcome that would mark a significant, if uncertain, shift in the country's political landscape.