Judea and Samaria leaders hope Trump will usher in 'golden age'
A construction site in Shiloh in the Binyamin region of Samaria, June 21, 2023. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s second term will usher in a “golden age” for the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and increase the chances of American backing for Israeli sovereignty over the territories, local leaders said on Wednesday.
“Time for sovereignty!” tweeted Binyamin Regional Council head Israel Ganz, who also serves as chairman of the Yesha Council umbrella group of Jewish communities, adding: “One strong Trump, one Jewish state.”
Beit El Council head Shai Alon told Israel’s Maariv daily: “The incoming administration must immediately cancel the false sanctions against the settlers. It is time to declare sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.”
Trump’s second term would be a “golden age for settlement,” stated Alon. “This is an unprecedented opportunity to act more strongly in the Judea and Samaria arenas, to put an end to murderous terrorism here and to continue broad and extensive Israeli construction throughout the entire territory.”
Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan said, “A great burden has fallen, a great weight,” noting that the Biden administration’s pressure “affected everything, on the security level and the settlement level.”
Dagan told Israel Hayom that he had been invited to attend Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington, D.C. He said he had worked “extensively” with the Trump campaign to secure his election, in the hope that a second Trump administration would move to recognize full Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.
This year, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reversed the “Pompeo Doctrine,” a 2020 recognition by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are not “per se inconsistent with international law.”
David Friedman, who served as Washington’s ambassador to Israel under Trump and is reportedly being considered for reappointment, earlier this year published a book that presents a view for peace that doesn’t depend on the long-argued-for “two-state solution” and would allow for full sovereignty by Jerusalem over Judea and Samaria.
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