Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has unveiled plans to bring one million Jewish immigrants from North America and Europe to Israel over the next decade, as his government accelerates settlement expansion and de facto annexation of occupied Palestinian land.
The proposal comes at a time when growing numbers of Israelis themselves are leaving the country, following years of war, political turmoil and deepening divisions under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s far-right government.
In an interview with Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post, Smotrich said he wants legislation allowing entire Jewish communities abroad to be allocated land and housing while bypassing Israel’s standard tender and planning processes.
Smotrich said he presented the plan to Netanyahu around six weeks ago, claiming immigration had been “neglected” while the government concentrated on what he described as revolutions in security and settlement.
Those settlement policies have included the establishment and expansion of settlements on occupied Palestinian land, the legalisation of previously unauthorised outposts and an accelerating push to impose Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank.
The plan therefore comes against the backdrop of an Israeli government simultaneously seeking to expand Jewish settlement and consolidate control over occupied Palestinian territory while encouraging large-scale Jewish immigration from abroad.
It also comes as Israel faces a growing emigration problem. A recent Knesset report found that the number of Israelis returning to the country fell by 53%, from around 8,000 in 2020 to just 3,800 in 2024.
Israel recorded a negative migration balance among Israelis between 2022 and 2024, with around 140,000 people deducted from the country’s migration balance during the three-year period.
Gilad Kariv, chairman of the Knesset’s Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee, has warned of a “tsunami of emigration”.
Smotrich wants entire communities brought to Israel
“We must now address the issue of immigration with the same level, momentum and investment with which we addressed security and settlement issues,” Smotrich said.
Despite opposition from professional officials at the Finance Ministry, Smotrich wants large-scale public construction to accommodate the proposed influx.
His legislation would exempt what he calls “community absorption projects” from normal tender and planning requirements, allowing Israeli authorities to allocate groups of buildings or entire neighbourhoods to incoming Jewish communities.
The neighbourhoods would include schools, synagogues and other communal institutions and would be planned in coordination with the communities themselves and developers.
Smotrich cited French Jews as an example, proposing that established Jewish communities move collectively.
“Come with your rabbi, with your school and with your community,” he said.
The far-right minister said such communities would initially be housed together but ultimately assimilated into Israeli society.
“We do not want them to continue speaking French here 100 years from now either,” he said.
Immigration pitched as an economic project
Smotrich also presented the mass immigration proposal as an economic project, saying: “This is not expenditure but an investment.”
He argued that the arrival of around one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union during the 1990s contributed to Israeli economic growth and said another large influx could help address labour shortages.
The government has already advanced tax breaks and professional recognition schemes intended to attract immigrants, with Smotrich saying around 1,600 doctors are expected to arrive from North America this summer.
But the push to attract one million new Jewish immigrants comes as Israel struggles to convince Israelis already living abroad to return.
Returns from the United States fell from around 3,700 in 2020 to about 1,500 in 2024, according to the Knesset report.
The report cited economic and bureaucratic problems alongside Israel’s security and social situation as factors discouraging Israelis from returning.
Smotrich nevertheless claimed that “there is no long-term future for Jewish communities outside Israel”, citing alleged antisemitism and insecurity abroad.