Right, so Britain has bravely slapped sanctions on Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, hasn’t it? A man whose favourite hobbies include inciting violence and cosplaying as a theocratic warlord. Asset freeze, travel ban, no more running British companies- how will he cope? Well, he couldn’t care less, could he really? It’s all for show, a strongly worded letter sent into the void.
But now the Edmund Burke Foundation, not exactly short on reactionary credentials, has rolled out the red carpet for Smotrich at its National Conservatism conference in Jerusalem. The Nat-C conference, if you will. And who happens to be their UK chairman? A certain chap by the name of James Orr, Reform UK’s ex-policy chief, currently suspended after an investigation by the investigative group Verbatim showed him discussing how to bypass British electoral laws on foreign political donations. As long as the money rolls in, eh? From Crypto billionaires or whoever, right?
Well, Smotrich also controls Israel's defence ministry. As defence minister, he oversees the Settlements Administration, giving him immense influence over planning, construction, and civilian rule in the occupied West Bank. In practice, he helps decide which Palestinian communities are squeezed, which settlements expand, and how much further Israel’s control reaches and given that he’s a settler himself, the optics are poor, but then again, I don’t think conflicts of interest apply much to Israel when it comes to such things. So when this very much sanctioned minister took the stage at NatCon, he wasn’t just some token lunatic to fill out the schedule. He was the main event-a man with the power to redraw borders and ruin lives, standing on a platform that was practically selling tickets for ‘Immigration and Cultural Replacement’
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