by Yossi Dagan, Head of the Shomron Regional Council, translated by Hillel Fendel.
The international court in The Hague ruled scandalously and anti-Semitically several days ago that the entire Jewish settlement enterprise in the Jewish homeland areas of Judea and Samaria, as well as eastern Jerusalem, is illegal. The ruling is not binding, but it certainly increases both the pressure on, and the isolation of, Israel in the international arena.
How must Israel respond? It must grow a backbone and a proud national posture, and respond with a unilateral decision of its own, to counter the court's one-sided decision: Israel must immediately annex all of Judea and Samaria and declare sovereignty there.
It was just before the onset of this past Sabbath that we heard the initial reports of the latest anti-Israel decision by the circus known as the International Court of Justice in The Hague – which was not a surprise in any way. The court headed by Judge Nawaf Salam of Lebanon, a country run by Hizbullah, ruled that Israel is an occupying power in its own homeland – Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem. But not only there: the same applies to Gush Katif, from where we voluntarily transferred nearly 9,000 men, women, and children, as well as gravesites, in the course of our unilateral withdrawal 19 years ago.
The Court's "Advisory Opinion" on this matter is so ridiculous, so detached from the reality of the evidence and of international law itself, that it can lead us to only one, incontrovertible conclusion: This international court decision is, not for the first time, openly anti-Semitic. The ruling is not based on one single piece of true or serious evidence. It in fact brings us back to the Medieval era courts, in which decisions were made first and evidence was sought only afterwards.
Judea and Samaria – Yehuda v'Shomron, in Hebrew, or "Yesha" for short – is the cradle of Jewish history. The word "Jew" even stems from the name "Judea." It was here that the Patriarch Abraham, and his descendants Isaac and Jacob and their sons, walked the sacred soil. The first Temple was here in Shilo, and the Machpelah Cave, in which are buried our holy ancestors Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Leah, and Jacob and Leah, is here in Hevron. In between Jerusalem and Hevron is Bethlehem, where the Matriarch Rachel was interred and where the Prophet Jeremiah envisioned her weeping over her exiled sons and daughters. And here was established the first Jewish kingdom by King David, and here was erected the altar of Yehoshua bin Nun.
It cannot be said, therefore, that the Jewish Nation, is a conqueror or occupier of the area of Judea. The Bible, accepted as G-d's truth even by Christians and Muslims, testifies like 1,000 witnesses that the Land of Israel belongs to no one but the People of Israel.
On a more technical level, a simple reason that Israel cannot be an occupying power here is because the territory was not under any national sovereignty at the time Israel took it over. Jordan's annexation of eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria in 1949 was not recognized by the international community, not even the Arab League – such that the area was desolate of foreign ownership when Israel entered the picture.
This latest decision reached in The Hague was not only one-sided and unjust. It was a ringing slap in the face to Israel and its efforts over the course of decades not to make unilateral decisions in Yesha, and to thus leave the way open for dialogue. Such a brazen anti-Israel move cannot go unanswered by Israel, and the response must be absolutely unambiguous. Israel must respond with a proud national posture and issue its own one-sided decision, just as The Hague did.
Namely, Israel must apply its sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, as a clear response to the anti-Semitic and laughable decision by the ICJ in The Hague. The time to do this has long passed, but it is not too late.