TEL AVIV (Dispatches) — Israel’s terrorist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has openly celebrated the renewed U.S. war on Iran as the ideal outcome for Israel, provided Israeli soldiers do not have to shed their own blood in the conflict.
“Israel has no interest in joining the campaign — the current situation is the best for us,” Smotrich said on Tuesday in comments carried by Kan news. 
He delivered the remarks at an annual gathering promoting the return of illegal Israeli settlements to Gaza. Smotrich has repeatedly called for Israel to occupy the enclave, impose military rule and establish settlements there while openly advocating for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
The finance minister’s callous calculation lays bare Israel’s cynical strategy: cheer for American blood and treasure to be spent destroying Iran while Israeli forces sit safely on the sidelines. 
The Zionist regime and the U.S. started the terrorist war with coordinated attacks on Iran on February 28, after Israel lobbied Washington into the aggression, prompting Tehran to retaliate against U.S. military assets across the region. The war was renewed earlier this month with the U.S. striking Iranian targets and Iran hitting U.S. assets across the region. Israel has so far not joined the terrorist aggression.
Smotrich nevertheless made clear that Israel still wants the war to deliver its strategic objectives. “[We] must remember that the ultimate goal of Israel, and not necessarily the United States, is to undermine and weaken Iran to the point of overthrowing” the Islamic Republic. 
He said that destroying Iran’s economy offered the most effective route towards that goal. 
Smotrich then returned to the central message that Israel should not enter the renewed war, saying that “the current situation is
 good for us, and there’s no point in pushing ourselves inward.”
The cost of the U.S. war on Iran is mounting by the day. Washington and Tehran signed a 14-point memorandum on 17 June to terminate military operations and begin 60 days of negotiations. 
Israeli officials opposed the agreement and pushed for the campaign to continue. Israel then sought to derail the agreement by continuing its attacks on Lebanon, despite the halting of those attacks being the agreement’s first provision.
Earlier this month, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said figures within the Zionist regime had sought to pull Washington away from diplomacy and deeper into war with Iran. 
“You have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and try to derail the deal,” he told the Joe Rogan podcast.
Israel may now consider the renewed war “good” for itself, but Americans are paying in blood and treasure. Seventeen U.S. military personnel have been killed, at least 420 wounded and one remains missing. 
The Iran War Cost Tracker has estimated that the war has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $100 billion by June 16, when it last published an estimate. According to Brown University’s Iran War Energy Cost Tracker, American households had also paid more than $71 billion in additional fuel costs — about $544 per household. With the war continuing, those costs are likely to be significantly higher now.
Smotrich’s remarks expose a disturbing truth: Israel views the United States not as an ally but as a disposable tool to be used for its own regional ambitions. Israeli officials pushed Washington into a war with Iran, then actively worked to derail diplomatic efforts to end it, all while refusing to commit their own forces to the fight they helped ignite.
The finance minister’s celebration of Iranian economic suffering — boasting of 85 percent inflation and a currency in freefall — reveals a regime that takes pleasure in the destruction of its enemies, regardless of who pays the price. For Smotrich and his extremist allies, American casualties are an acceptable cost for achieving Israeli objectives.
As the war continues to drain American resources and claim American lives, the question remains: how long will Washington allow itself to be dragged into conflicts that serve the interests of an apartheid terrorist regime while Israel itself refuses to fight?