In Judea and Samaria, Build They Must

[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]

While all eyes, for good and ill, are on Gaza and the Trump plan, the future of the Jewish state is being decided in Judea and Samaria. It is there, and not in Haifa or Tel Aviv, where Jewish history was made over the last 3,500 years. The League of Nations assigned Judea and Samaria to be part of the territory that was to become the Jewish National Home, and then the State of Israel. In 1967, the UN Security Council Resolution 242 recognized that Israel had a right to retain any territory the IDF had won in the Six-Day War that the Jewish state required if it was to have “secure and defensible borders.”

In Judea and Samaria, Jews — of their own free will, not by government fiat — have been establishing outposts on state and waste lands, beginning with a few caravans, that then over time are replaced with houses, and those outposts expand to become villages. The increasing numbers of Israelis in Judea and Samaria means it will be ever less likely that a 23rd Arab state will be created on that land. Now there are close to 540,000 Israelis living in Judea and Samaria (which the Jordanians renamed in 1950 as the “West Bank”). Another 350,000 Jews live in east Jerusalem, which, like Judea and Samaria, had been included by the League of Nations in Mandatory Palestine, but which Jordan’s Arab Legion seized in the 1948 war. During the Six-Day War, Israel was able to take back from Jordan all that territory, which included the Old City. During Jordan’s 19-year rule as military occupier, Jews were not allowed to visit the Temple Mount nor the Western Wall. After the war, Israel could exercise its preexisting right to Judea, Samaria, and east Jerusalem. And ever since, Israeli Jews have been moving into all three areas. Now young Israelis are more determined than ever to build more outposts, that will gradually become villages, throughout Judea and Samaria — that is, to create irreversible facts on the ground.

More on this building fervor can be found here: “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:

On a dusty hilltop with sweeping views of Ramallah to the west and the Jordan Valley to the east, three generations of one Israeli family recently gathered to build a memorial to their loved one Hadas – a sister, daughter, and mother – who they say was killed in a terrorist attack nearby six years ago.

The men, with grisly [sic] beards, the women in colorful, neatly bound headscarves, and a slew of energetic children were setting up a mitzpeh (observation point) with picnic tables overlooking the winding road where Hadas’s car crashed and she was killed.

The family says she lost control of the steering wheel while dodging rocks thrown by Palestinians.

They are clearly enthusiastic about their project, yet wary. There is concern that their actions might draw unwanted attention from nearby Palestinian villages, human rights groups, or Israeli authorities – any of whom might try to stop the construction.

The family has no permit and refused to give more than basic information or to be photographed, but they are firm in their message: This is Jewish land, and they will do with it what they wish.

Last month, nearly 150 countries – including close allies of Israel – reaffirmed their support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with some formally recognizing a Palestinian state.

Nearly 150 countries recognized a nonexistent “state of Palestine.” No one could describe its borders, or its government, or its population, or how it is to be governed, and whether it will be demilitarized. It is a fiction, pleasing to some leaders who lemming-like jumped on the juggernaut of recognizing a “Palestinian state” after France and Spain and Ireland got the ball rolling. After October 7, 2023, 80% of Israelis reported that they did not believe in, and would oppose, a “two- state solution.” As Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeated, “there will never be a Palestinian state” on this side of the Jordan. He was clearly alluding to the possibility of Jordan, which was created out of eastern Palestine, some 78% of the territory that had originally been included in Mandatory Palestine, of becoming that “state of Palestine” on the other, eastern side, of the river Jordan.

On the ground, however, a very different reality is emerging. While diplomacy takes place abroad, a Jewish entity is clearly taking shape on the very land Palestinians hope for a future nation state….

The Palestinians don’t limit their hopes to a “future nation state.” They look forward to a “future nation state” that will serve as a launching pad for attacks on a much-diminished Israel, so that their ultimate goal — the disappearance of Israel and its replacement by a 23rd Arab state — can be achieved.