Development of Judea and Samaria - The Jerusalem Post

In a reversal of US policy toward Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), the outgoing US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced that Israeli settlements “…are contrary to international law.”

He continued: “Our government remains firmly opposed to settlement expansion, and in our view this only weakens, not strengthens, Israel’s security. It has been long-standing US policy, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, that new settlements are counterproductive to achieving lasting peace.”

It has always baffled Israelis why Americans consider building Israel an obstacle to peace, when Palestinian terrorism is clearly a bigger obstacle to peace.

Objection to Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria is relatively new and has never been voiced by Israelis and their friends around the world. In January 1918, after Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, the future Israeli became Prime Minister David Ben Gurion wrote about the importance of building and establishing the land of Israel: “Zionists must now turn inward, toward the Jewish people. All our material and spiritual possessions must now be used for the great, urgent and challenging task before us: the building of the nation by the Hebrew people.”

In an article written for the Israel Policy Forum, an anti-settlement organization, Shaul Arieli wrote that Ben-Gurion’s construction plans included what is now the West Bank: “Before the establishment of Israel and the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank, the area contained several Jewish communities. , as well as millennia of Jewish history and many of Judaism’s holiest sites, such as the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

Israeli soldiers patrol the West Bank city of Hebron on October 22, 2024 (credit: WISAM HASHLAMOUN/FLASH90)

“Jordan expelled 17,000 Jews from the West Bank during the 1948 war,” he said.

Reaffirming Israel’s historical and legal ties to the West Bank

BEFORE 1948, there were Jewish towns, farms, and villages in biblical Israel, especially in Judea and Samaria. There were towns in the Gush Etzion block in the valley along the Dead Sea; cities like Beit Haarava and Kalya were booming developments; and also in southern Israel, such as the biblical city of Hebron. In East Jerusalem, the area called Atarot, where the Israelite prophets taught their messages, was an established Jewish population center. It was only after the destruction of these Jewish areas by the Jordanian army that the Jewish inhabitants were banished from their homes.

Israeli leaders have consistently spoken about the Jewish people’s strong and historic ties to Judea and Samaria.

Menachem Begin spoke of the strong bond of the Jewish people and the State of Israel with Judea and Samaria, saying: “Israel will not hand over Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District to any foreign sovereign authority, (due to) the historical right of our nation to this country, (and) the needs of our national security, which require the ability to defend our state and the lives of our citizens.”

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said: “Those who settle in Judea and Samaria are the pioneers of today. We have not taken a foreign land; we have reclaimed the land of our ancestors.”

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PROF. TALIA Einhorn of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs spoke about the historical and legal right of the Jewish people to Judea and Samaria: “The legality of the Jewish settlements in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and Gaza arises from the historical, indigenous and legal rights to settle in those areas, validated in international documents. To deny Jews the right to live in the Old City of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria is to deny their ties to their biblical and historical homeland, the very ties recognized in these documents.”

Yet there have been Israeli politicians who have failed to understand the depth of the bond between Judea and Samaria and the Israeli people. The former head of the Meretz Party, Nitzan Horowitz, said: “Construction in the settlements is rampant – even in the isolated settlements and in the illegal outposts.” He claimed that Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked were leading Israel to the “abyss” by seeking to strengthen Israeli development of Judea and Samaria.

Horowitz’s comments were not much better than those made by current Meretz Party chairman Yair Golan. Golan called some Jewish Israeli settlers “inhuman” and said: “These are not human beings; they are inhuman, despicable people… they should not be given any support, and they should be forcibly removed from there.”

WHAT CAUSES people like Horowitz and Golan to abandon long-standing Jewish historical ties to parts of Eretz Yisrael, especially the heart of the Jewish homeland, and declare that Jewish development of these areas is somehow nefarious, illegal, or immoral is? When did they stop considering the construction of Eretz Yisrael as a Zionist goal?

Unfortunately, after the two-state solution was taken seriously by foreign powers, some Israelis began to abandon the Jewish people’s long-standing ties to Judea and Samaria. Although Zionism has always stood for the Jewish development and settlement of the Land of Israel, a movement began in Israel advocating appeasing our enemies by halting construction in Israel and even withdrawing from lands where Israelis were already settled . This new approach was nothing short of treacherous to Zionist idealism and values.

There were Israelis who thought that leaving disputed areas would make Israel more secure. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, this was the reason Israel withdrew its people and destroyed its cities in Gaza in 2005: “Israel’s plan for a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria, put forward by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was Executed August 15, 2005. The purpose of the plan was to improve Israel’s security and international status in the absence of peace negotiations with the Palestinians.” It may have seemed wise at the time to give up parts of Eretz Yisrael to secure other parts of the country, but in 2024, after the withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon, it has become clear that giving up parts of Israel will never secure Israel – in fact, it makes Israel much less safe.

Any honest and astute observer of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict understands that the Palestinians have no interest in living in peace alongside the Jewish state of Israel. Their sole aim is to eliminate the Jewish state and replace it with a Palestinian state. Israel has approached the Palestinians in peace several times, and each time the Palestinians reject their offer. The only option for security for the Jewish people is to develop Judea and Samaria with greater speed and scope. The development of the country is in accordance with Zionist values and has been the historical Jewish path.

The writer is a certified interfaith hospice chaplain in Jerusalem and mayor of Mitzpe Yericho, where she lives with her husband and six children.