The Israeli Knesset delivered a resounding message to the world on Wednesday, voting 71-13 in favor of a groundbreaking declaration calling on the government to apply full Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley.
“The Knesset has made a historic declaration that supports the application of Israeli sovereignty over the homeland regions of Judea and Samaria,” declared Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana. “It is a great privilege to be the Speaker who says in a firm voice—this is our land and this is our home. In 1967 the occupation did not start, it ended.”
Judea and Samaria encompasses some 2,180 square miles of land between Israel proper and the Jordan River which have been administered by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War.
The overwhelming parliamentary support reflects Israel’s growing determination to assert its rights following the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre, which the declaration explicitly cites as proof that “the establishment of a Palestinian state poses an existential danger to Israel, its citizens and the entire region.”
“The time has come to pursue and seek peace from power, not from weakness,” declared MK Simcha Rothman. “Eretz Israel belongs to the people of Israel—yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever.”
While international critics will undoubtedly condemn Israel’s assertion of its historic rights, the Knesset’s declaration emphasizes the undeniable truth: “Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley are an inseparable part of Eretz Israel—the historical, cultural and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people.”
Although not binding, the declaration reminds the world that “hundreds and thousands of years before the state’s establishment, the forefathers and the prophets of the nation lived and acted in these regions,” with cities like Hebron, Shechem, and Beit El serving as “a living expression of the continuity of Jewish existence in the land.”
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