by Adi Mintz, former Director-General of the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, translated by Hillel Fendel.
A dream
is coming true in the city of Hevron these days: Far from the spotlights, the
roofing project in the Cave of the Patriarchs (Me'arat HaMachpelah) is
advancing rapidly. The area often used for Jewish prayer services (weather
permitting, which it generally does not, especially in boiling summer heat and
cold rainy winter days) will be fitted, for the first time in history, with a
roof being manufactured in a specialized factory, while tractors and heavy
engineering vehicles prepare the access routes on the site for the cranes and
trucks to complete the job.
For the
more than 700,000 Jewish worshipers who visit the site annually (nearly 100,000
more than the amount of Muslims), this is the realization of a long-held dream:
the ability to pray in the site's central courtyard, between the tombs of
Avraham and Sarah on the right and Yaakov and Leah on the left, protected from
the elements. New electrical infrastructure, air conditioning, drainage, and
lighting will be installed as well.
The logic behind this secrecy is obvious. In today's complex international political context of Yesha (Judea and Samaria), every bombastic declaration or untimely publication is liable to mean the end of a project. To its credit, the Religious Zionism party, headed by Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich, understands that the way to make the long-overdue vital strategic changes in the demographics of Yesha is precisely the opposite of a PR approach. It is rather found in the tedious maze of governmental apparatuses.
The most recent move led by Smotrich and his party colleague, Settlement Affairs Minister Orit Strook, illustrates this perfectly: the passage of a dramatic cabinet decision that transfers all urban planning authorities in Area H2 (the part of Hevron that was allocated for Jewish settlement under by the 1997 Hebron Agreement) to Israeli planning authorities. With this quiet administrative step, a primary millstone of the Hebron Agreement was effectively removed, and the zoning barriers that had blocked Jewish settlement in Hebron for nearly three decades were eliminated.
But, as significant as this project is, it is only an example – a major one, granted – of the consistent, systematic modus operandi that has led, during the nearly four years of the current Israeli government, to an unprecedented revolution in the entire Judea and Samaria settlement enterprise. This is a strategy based on acting quietly and discreetly, with painstaking, tiny-step by tiny-step work to dismantle bureaucratic and legal obstacles while trying to avoid headlines and flaunt achievements. This is of course not the usual manner in which projects like this are carried out…
The process wondrously mimics how a sapling becomes a tree. In its first years, the sapling is lovingly and modestly irrigated and protected from dangerous elements; its fruits, if there are any, are orlah and may not be eaten. Only in the fourth year may they be consumed, with certain restrictions, and then in the fifth year, after years of quiet work, the fruits sprout forth in full bloom, to be heartily partaken of.
Similarly in the administrative/legal sphere in Yesha. Minister Smotrich and his colleagues stubbornly waged a long political struggle for the establishment of a new "Settlement Administration" in the Defense Ministry (which has overall responsibility for Judea and Samaria), with Yehuda Eliyahu at its helm. After it was put together, it was no simple matter to contend with then-Defense Minister Yoav Galant – who has since been replaced by the much more sympathetic Yisrael Katz – over the boundaries of its authorities. The structural changes that were made with the establishment of the new Administration included the appointment of a Deputy Administration head for Civilian Matters, and the transfer of broad authorities from the head of the IDF's Civil Administration and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) to civilian hands. One of the most significant changes was the transfer of the authorities of the Legal Counsel's Office of Yesha to the Defense Ministry Legal Counsel, who reports directly to the new Administration. For years these authorities had been governed by the Chief IDF Prosecution, headed most recently by the now-disgraced Tomer Yerushalmi. This effectively neutralized one of the primary legal barriers that long blocked and delayed Jewish development in Yesha.
For many long months, the new Settlement Administration operated below the radar. It fundamentally changed the methods of supervision over and enforcement of laws against illegal Arab construction, and brought about a dramatic revolution in the workings of the Supreme Planning Council, the top planning and zoning body in the Civil Administration. It also led to the declaration of many thousands of dunams (1,000-square-meter tracts of land) as State Land, amidst very close cooperation with the IDF Central Command.
At the same time, Finance Minister Smotrich allocated the necessary resources and budgetary sums for this civilian revolution; the faction's MKs led the way to pass the historic legislation nullifying the 2005 Disengagement Law from northern Shomron; and Settlement Minister Strook led the ongoing Agricultural Farms enterprise – hundreds of strategic points throughout Judea and Samaria that watch over and preserve our national lands.
Speak Little, Do Much
This quiet, calculated activity began to ripen significantly only in the last year and a half. Suddenly, whoever travels in Judea and Samaria today immediately notices the changes in the landscape. The construction momentum, the paving of roads, the new, white light-construction houses dotting the hills, and the establishment of new outposts are all now "facts on the ground." We learned this lesson of speaking little and doing much from our Patriarch Avraham: When the angels arrived at his tent, he promised them, "I will fetch [you] a morsel of bread" - but in practice, he rushed to bring them flour cakes, cattle, and a variety of delicacies.
The European Union, the American administration, and even the extreme left-wing organizations in Israel did not recognize the scale of the structural change in time, because it was done behind the scenes, in dry legal discussions and administrative orders. They panicked and began to exert political pressure only when they discovered the final result, when the revolution had already taken shape and became irreversible.
Editor's Note: Peace Now released a 65-page report
this week summing up, very satisfactorily in nationalist eyes, the progress
made in Judea and Samaria from 2023 to 2025. It states that 185 new Jewish
outposts were established during this period; plans for 40,064 housing units
were advanced (two-thirds of these during 2025 alone), and 102 new communities
were approved. Nearly 26,000 dunams were declared state lands – almost 50% of
the entire amount declared as state lands ever since the Oslo Agreements were
signed. At least 223 kilometers of new roads were paved.