by Bet El Mayor Shai Alon, translated by Hillel Fendel
Here we go again. Once more, it's "not the right time" for Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. Once again, there are more important things on the agenda. Once again, historic justice and the placement of facts on the ground so critical for the future of the State of Israel are shunted aside, in favor of written agreements and (hollow) applause in capitals around the world.
The sovereignty promises we received from both Prime Minister Netanyahu and US President Trump have evaporated; that's clear to see. The question now is: What's next? It would seem that as of now, the settlement enterprise in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley is in a more precarious state than it was when we first started even talking about sovereignty. For many long months, up until that happy, dramatic day this past January when the two leaders stood together in the White House, the tide was clearly turning towards rendering the settlement enterprise a bona-fide part of the State of Israel. But now, this process has been braked – hard.
The message that emerges to the world is negative - very much so. The State of Israel was given an opportunity to take a course of action to essentially annex many parts of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley, and thus to jump-start the process towards full recognition of these areas as Jewish and Israeli. But it did not happen. The "liberals" of our land, together with our new friends in the United Arab Emirates, and all the other countries of the world, are following the developments, and they now understand that Israel, for whatever reason, has decided to concede on sovereignty.
Netanyahu and the Likud have taken a clever PR approach, saying that until now we have paid dear prices for peace: Land for peace (when we gave Egypt the Sinai Peninsula), terrorism for peace (after the Oslo Accords), and rockets for peace (after the withdrawal from Gush Katif). But now, the Likud is saying, we have gained peace with the United Emirates in exchange for – peace. Sounds great. But the fact is that if the State of Israel does not now implement a policy making it crystal-clear that it is continuing to develop and boost construction in Judea and Samaria, we will once again find ourselves paying the high price of "land for peace," and this time with critical, strategic parts of our heartland.
PM Netanyahu promised us the moon – or at least the mountains of Samaria and the hilltops of Judea. But as of now, none of that has materialized. We do not even formally have the valley of the Jordan River. And the whole matter is enwrapped in fog: While in Washington the Americans emphasized that sovereignty is off the table, finito, and totally over with, in Jerusalem Netanyahu continues to insist that it has merely been postponed and suspended, because "now is not the right time."
As Israeli citizens – even if we still lack some rights that those who live in Tel Aviv and Ashdod have – we lift our eyes to Jerusalem. But we are getting tired of waiting! The time has come! The time has come to see actions on the ground – construction without restrictions, new roads, and development all over. The time has come for the IDF's Civil Administration, which currently still governs the area, to stop convening just once in six months to approve development plans. It's time for tractors and earth-moving equipment to storm the hilltops and turn them into flourishing Jewish towns like has never been seen before – other than in the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah and others.
And one more very significant point: To come and lay the blame for the failure of the sovereignty plan on those who objected to Trump's Deal of the Century is not only false, naïve, and superficial, but borders on the malicious. We simply had some objections that, with some good will, could easily have been talked out. If there can be negotiations with the United Emirates leading to an agreement, cannot the same occur with us settlers?
We said all along that the application of sovereignty could not be permitted to come at the expense of several Jewish communities becoming isolated enclaves inside an Arab presence, and that certain changes in the plan were needed. But no one was willing to talk with us openly about them, or to make clear what really was about to happen. There was lots of talk, but no action. From now on, the currency in which the settlement enterprise must trade is actions, and only actions.
It's not the right time – for promises.