After 57 years of wavering and hesitation that have harmed Israel security-wise, morally, politically, and historically, the time has come to take the reins, apply sovereignty, and take responsibility for our future and the future of the entire region.
Over the course of 57 years, Israeli governments have done almost everything to avoid taking responsibility for the heartland of our country, its biblical-historical heartland. This avoidance came at a heavy price in the form of undermining the just claim that sounds the simplest of all, but which is the most profound, truest claim of them all: “This land is our land.”
The nations of the world also acknowledged this claim of historical justice even before Israel’s establishment. This is how the Balfour Declaration was conceived, and this was accepted and endorsed by the League of Nations.
But we continue wrestling with our own baseless moral dilemmas, wallowing in quicksand into which we placed ourselves instead of extracting ourselves with the simple and clear statement: “This land is our land.”
No one denies the complexity of the demographic challenge involved in declaring Israeli sovereignty over an area where an Arab population lives, a population proffering their own national claims, claims of a nation that never existed.
However, should we continue to refrain from realizing our natural right to our land due to that complexity? Does a mother relinquish her child due to difficulties of one sort or another? Every mother understands that even if tending to her child involves difficulties and complexities, he/she remains her child. She will never give up on her child, but rather, will dedicate even more time and resources to the child and his/her development.
The October 7th massacre painfully and cruelly clarified the enemy’s objectives to the vast majority of the people in Israel. Even those who believed that perhaps a way to live with reasonable neighborly relations could be found, witnessed the sights, heard the cries of those massacred and abducted, listened to the enemy's clear declarations, and understood that they are indeed serious.
Their threats and hopes are not the result of the dreams and imagination of a Middle Eastern fantasy, but a systematic plan to destroy Israel.
This profound understanding has also been internalized by many in the Israeli Left and certainly among those characterized as centrists. Therefore, any political program that will include any agreement for the establishment of a Palestinian state of any kind is doomed to failure from the outset.
This was also the reason for the failure of the Deal of the Century during President Trump's previous term. The thought that 70% of the territory would be designated for establishment of a terrorist state that would also control the entire area surrounding the communities in Judea and Samaria, lacked a basis in reality and was also a recipe for existential disaster for the State of Israel.
The people of Israel understood this already then, and now the life-loving people have internalized this even more intensely.
A Palestinian state, large or small, cannot and will not be established between the river and the sea, even if someone tries to blind us with a significant political sweetener like a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia.
No political sweetener can erase the existential threat posed by the existence of a Palestinian state to the heartland of the State of Israel. It is sufficient for us to realize that a few thousand terrorists perpetrated the October massacre with relatively primitive weapons in order to understand what tens and hundreds of thousands of agents of a terrorist state, equipped with new, advanced, lethal, standard, and cutting-edge weapons are liable to do to us.
The response to all of this, and especially now with the latest dramatic developments in the Middle East, is a clear Zionist Jewish statement in the form of applying sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.
To the extent that individuals will be found in the Arab population who seek a peaceful life under Israeli sovereignty, we can accept them and grant them resident status that provides them with all civil rights, among them rights that their brethren in Arab countries never had and never will have.
Israel will have control over security, foreign policy, educational content and curricula, and will prevent incitement and nationalist subversion.
Those insisting on remaining committed to terrorism will be banished from our land. We are unable to live with a terrorist enemy in our midst.
In addition, we must encourage emigration for those interested in doing so; it turns out there are more than a few people of that kind. Many Arabs from Judea and Samaria seek to send their children to study at universities around the world. Many of them are interested in ensuring a better future for their next generation, better living conditions and housing in various countries throughout the world. Many understand the heavy price they are paying for the violent conflict which their leaders have imposed upon them and now seek different lives elsewhere.
The State of Israel must enable this, as until now their dictatorial leaders have employed harsh measures to prevent this from them.
As long as we did not take these necessary steps, as long as we hesitated over the years, hope was nurtured in the enemy that the day was near when they could engender Israel’s destruction. Our evasion of responsibility has served as wind in the sails of the terrorism ship that was constantly racing towards a collision with the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
The change of government in the United States instills hope in us that applying sovereignty is possible. This can be gleaned from the statements of the inner circle surrounding President Trump. However, we must understand that President Trump will, first and foremost, tend to American interests and seek to leave a historic mark of change in the Middle East. Therefore, we must keep a careful eye on every political maneuver and its implications.
The new administration is well aware of the Iranian threat hovering over the Middle East, and Israel must present sovereignty as an integral component of the struggle against the efforts of the Iranian axis of evil who wishes to move westward through Jordan, Judea and Samaria, and Israel on its way to European countries and beyond. The wall of sovereignty will block this.
Over the past decade and a half, numerous sovereignty plans of one kind or another have been raised. Many are interesting and have a realistic chance of developing into a significant course of action. This is not the place to detail them all, but Israeli right-wing leaders must understand that their great friend, the United States, will be unable to deal with a jumble of partial plans. The leadership in Israel must come to the political negotiating table with one systematic and serious plan. To do this, they must convene, discuss the advantages and weaknesses of each plan, present responses to the various challenges, and articulate to their interlocutors in Washington and all the Western capitals a single logical, responsible, and realistic sovereignty plan.
Sovereignty is Zionist, moral, Jewish, necessary for Israel and for the entire free world.