The future of the Jewish state is being decided in Judea and Samaria: “As the world backs a Palestinian state, a Jewish future is being cemented in the West Bank,” by Ruth Marks Eglash, Jerusalem Post, October 16, 2025:
When the barking fades and the wind dies down, silence settles. For miles, there are no other visible signs of human life – just the rolling hills of the Judean Desert leading up to the Jordanian border….
Is this not the same “waste and desolation” that Mark Twain wrote about after his.visit to the Holy Land, describing in Innocents Abroad a “hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land” with barren hills, unsightly valleys, and a lack of vegetation? But the Israelis have for more than a half-century, ever since 1967, been making Judea and Samaria bloom and thrive, just as they have done with the land they were left with after the 1948 war.
There are 550,00 Israelis now living in Judea and Samaria, and another 350,000 living in east Jerusalem — 900,000 Israelis living on land to which the Jewish state held title, from both 3,500 years of history, and from the Mandate for Palestine, but could not exercise its right until it took possession of that land after the Six-Day War.
The removal of only 9,000 Israelis from Gaza in 2005 was a traumatic event for Israelis. It would be impossible to uproot 550,000 Israelis from Judea and Samaria. No Israeli government that agreed to that could remain in power.
There are several goals that Israel’s government is pursuing in Judea and Samaria. One is to help young couples starting a family to find inexpensive housing. A second is to bring the land, that suffered terribly under Jordanian mismanagement from 1949 to 1967, back to fruitful life. And a third is to “break territorial continuity” so that it becomes impossible for a Palestinian state to be constructed. Why should Jews be apologetic for this? They have a perfect right to settle throughout Judea and Samaria, on state and waste lands, as well as on lands that they buy from Arab owners. Why should they not attempt to situate their own settlements so as to make that will-o’-the-wisp, that dangerous “two-state solution,” impossible?
In August, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also has authority over the West Bank as part of his additional portfolio in the Defense Ministry, announced a renewed push to build in the E1 corridor – a contentious strip linking the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim to Jerusalem.
The plan, long touted by the Israeli government, has faced sharp condemnation by Palestinians, Western governments, and human rights groups, who argue that such a move would split the West Bank and kill any hope for a future Palestinian state….
Exactly. No Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River, for reasons of history, international law, and national survival. The Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria will have, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly said, “all of the powers to rule themselves, and none of the powers to harm us.” But there will not be a twenty-third Arab state “between the river and the sea.”
The more that others “recognize a state of Palestine,” the more determined Israelis become to prevent such a thing from ever happening, for the people of Israel now know that such a state would become a launching pad, on much more favorable conditions for the Palestinians, for attacks against Israel.
Hagit Ofran, who directs Peace Now’s Settlement Watch project, which monitors all developments related to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, called it “a very effective strategy of taking over land and expelling Palestinians from the surroundings.
Peace Now is the far-left group in Israel that is determined to monitor and help to undermine Israeli settlement plans, and to work, perversely, for the establishment of a Palestinian state, oblivious to what such a state would mean for Israel’s security.
The media have managed to present these Israelis now building their outposts and villages in Judea and Samaria as wild-eyed “settlers” — the very word has become a pejorative — but there is nothing wild-eyed about them. They are rational actors, who want to hold onto land that is Jewish by right — see the Mandate for Palestine — and that Israel needs to keep if it is to be properly defended against Arab aggressors invading from the east. The conditions of their lives are hard; the soil is still poor, thanks to decades of mismanagement by the Palestinians and the Jordanians. There is a heightened security threat from their Arab neighbors. But the Israelis in Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem keep on keeping on. And they deserve the gratitude from the people of Israel and, come to think of it, from everyone who wants a real, and not a factitious, peace between Arab and Jew in the Middle East.
Condor says
It’s going to be ““waste and desolation” ” after they build their Third Temple and bring the Son of Perdition to power. They have no idea the fate that awaits them.
gravenimage says
“Condor” here has never said anything negative about Jihad terror that I have ever seen–but he sure hates civilized Jews.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
“Peace Now” still exists as an organization in Israel, even if the Labour Party is defunct? How many Israeli non-muslims are still stupid enough to think that it’s even possible?
Siddi Nasrani says
Your quote, ” Peace Now is the far-left group in Israel that is determined to monitor and help to undermine Israeli settlement plans, and to work, perversely, for the establishment of a Palestinian state, oblivious to what such a state would mean for Israel’s security.”
I would say, not so. They know exactly what they are doing, they are cultural Marxists &
would love to destroy the land of Israel & build a Marxist Utopia on the ashes of the old.
Larry says
Without realizing that they would be among the first taken to a high place and cast down when the barbarians get power.
Larry says
Anyone with half a brain and bothering to read the history of the region going back to the start of Zionist return to Israel would know that a “two state solution” as being pushed it completely idiotic, and the pragmatic solution that the British implemented in the early 1920s is already a two state solution and the only one that would have any chance of working.
The fact that that hasn’t been rammed down throats is why we get the current situation.
Anybody who does bother to read that history and still tries the push the fakestinian narrative is nothing but a hidden anti semite, because if becomes blindingly obvious that the only reason it is being pushed is as a means to implement the Final Solution.
The fakestinians have been offered a “two state solution” west of the Jordan on multiple occasions and every time they’ve rejected it and set out to kill every Jew between the river and the sea that they could get at.
skeptiker says
Judäa und Samaria sind Teil des Kernlandes von Israel. Parallelgesellschaften, die sich wie in Gaza ausschließlich über den gewalttätigen Kampf gegen Israel definieren, dürfen nie wieder einen autonomen Status erhalten.
Wer etwas anderes herbei phantasiert, gehört dem Lager derjenigen an, die das Existenzrecht Israels in Frage stellen und an einem muslimischen Imperium arbeiten.
OLD GUY says
The Two State solution hasn’t got a chance in hell to turn out good for Israel.
gravenimage says
This would just be a stepping stone to the destruction of democratic Israel.
LS says
International law experts Natasha Hausdorff and Eugene Kontorovich have demonstrated that there is in fact NO “Occupation” of the so-called West Bank. It is another myth perpetuated by Israel’s enemies, just like the “genocide in Gaza” “the Jenin Massacre” and so many others. This sounds shocking and unbelievable after so many decades of media acceptance of this myth but these lawyers have demonstrated it at length in several articles and YouTube videos. No one should be making reference to this mythological “Occupation” anymore.
gravenimage says
No “occupation” in Gaza, either.
Winston 101 says
The “two-state solution” is still the same useful trick
its always been since it was rejected by the Arabs in 1947.
The subterfuge goes like this:
The local Arabs say NO! ALL the land is OURS and start a war.
When they lose the war, and the land, they
start pitifully whining about wanting a state of their own.
The West falls for their whining and grants them territory whereupon the
local Arabs do their best to continue the war they started against Israel in
1948. The Arabs declare it’s a zero sum game. No Jews allowed!
The Arabs lose, yet again ,and go back to whining about wanting a state
– and the West goes back to placating them.
It doesn’t matter where the “Arab land for a state” is located – the process
is the same.
Reject the land offered,
Start a war to eliminate Israel,
Lose the war,
Now having lost the war AND the land,
Insist on wanting the land you lost for a state.
The West grants the land, again!
Arabs start the war all over again.
This is because: The goal of the Arabs is to eliminate Israel.
The “land” is just a launch pad to accomplish that goal.
Change the word “Arabs” to “Nazis” and the picture becomes clear.
Would it be wise , or would anyone expect, Israel to have Nazijastan
for a neighbor?