The future of Judea and Samaria is now at stake

Israel and the United States cooperated in recent months to prepare and carry out an unprecedented operation that obliterated the nuclear program of the Iranian revolutionary regime. According to the Pentagon, Israel’s Operation Rising Lion and the US attack on three major Iranian nuclear installations have set back the Iranian program by as much as two years.

As the focus of discussions shifts to resolution of the conflict in Gaza and the future of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria (“the West Bank”), the question now is whether this close Israeli-US cooperation will continue.

Trump and Netanyahu are now playing a delicate cat-and-mouse game, in the lead-up to Netanyahu’s planned visit to Washington next week.

“We will free all of our hostages,
and we will eliminate Hamas down to its very foundations,”

Trump is pressuring Israel to end the war in Gaza, and to accept some kind of Palestinian state. Israel is still highly dependent on the United States for weapons as well as financial and political support. The question is how far Netanyahu will be willing to bend to meet Trump’s demands.

Although the interests of Trump and Netanyahu are aligned, they far from identical. Trump is pursuing a transactional vision of the Middle East based on deals he is negotiating with the Sunni Arab states in which the latter agree to accept Israel’s existence and normalize relations with Israel. He also has a domestic interest in seeing an end to the war in Gaza; while the Administration supports eradication of Hamas, there is a lot of pressure on Trump in the United States to finalize a deal that brings an end to the Gaza conflict. Furthermore, Trump has extensive personal interests in the Gulf states, that seem to be influencing his decision-making as President.

Netanyahu’s foremost interest, on the other hand, is securing the long-term security of the Jewish State of Israel. That security is dependent on three factors: eradication of Hamas and all other radical Islamist entities bent on killing Jews; continued sovereignty over the unified city of Jerusalem; and ultimate control of the “West Bank”: the strategic mountains of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley.

Netanyahu and the Israeli government are also committed to getting all the hostages home. This aim is in tension with the aim of eradicating Hamas. On a visit to the southern city of Ashkelon on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the Hamas terror group would be eliminated from the Gaza Strip. “There will be no more Hamas. It’s over. We will free all of our hostages, and we will eliminate Hamas down to its very foundations,” he said. While noting that some may say the objectives sound contradictory—destroying Hamas and releasing the hostages—Netanyahu said they fit together.

Hamas continues to insist that it will release hostages only if Israel commits to ending the war – without fully eradicating Hamas.

Eradication of Hamas seems to be a common interest not only for Israel and the US, but also of Sunni states in the region. A recent report suggests that Saudi Arabia even is making the destruction of Hamas a condition of entering into an Abraham Accord with Israel.

“We, ministers and Knesset members, call for the immediate application of Israeli sovereignty and law to Judea and Samaria,”

However Jerusalem and the West Bank remain thorny issues. Reports suggest that Trump is pressuring Israel to accept Arab post-war control over the Gaza Strip, and a Palestinian state in the West Bank (albeit subject to conditions, such as reform of the Palestinian Authority).

Israel is unlikely to agree to the latter. The overwhelming majority of Israelis believe that, since 7th October 2023, a Palestinian state in any shape or form represents an existential threat to the Jewish State of Israel. Moreover, there seems to be a growing sense that the only solution to the problems in the West bank is for Israel to assert full sovereignty. Since June 1967, Israel has asserted full sovereignty over Jerusalem, but not over Judea and Samaria; rather, it has treated them as occupied, while asserting that sovereignty over this territory is ”in abeyance”. Yesterday, all Ministers and Knesset members of Netanyahu’s Likud Party signed a statement demanding that Israel apply its sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria.

“We, ministers and Knesset members, call for the immediate application of Israeli sovereignty and law to Judea and Samaria,” stated the letter, which posits that establishing Israeli rule over those areas is a natural extension of Netanyahu’s success against Iran and its proxies. “The massacre of Oct. 7 proved that … the establishment of a Palestinian state in the rest of the territory is an existential danger to Israel. It’s time for sovereignty,” it read.

Trump also announced this week that Israel has agreed to the terms of a proposal for a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas. It is expected that Qatar and Egypt will present this proposal to Hamas. It is hard to imagine that – if, as is reported, Israel has agreed to its terms – the proposal will be acceptable to Hamas, which remains committed to ensuring its survival and thus refuses to accept any deal that allows Israel to continue the war until Hamas is eradicated.

So, all-in-all, Trump and Netanyahu will discuss many complex and interrelated issues when they meet next week in the White House – issues that will have major implications for peace and stability in the region going forward.

Let us pray this week for the restoration of peace and stability in the land. Pray for Prime Minster Netanyahu and President Trump as they meet in the coming days. Pray for Israel’s enemies. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and for the coming of the Prince of Peace.

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Ahead of Netanyahu’s White House visit, Likud ministers unanimously sign sovereignty letter
"We, ministers and Knesset members, call for the immediate application of Israeli sovereignty and law to Judea and Samaria," they stated in a letter.
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