Energy Minister: Sovereignty in Judea and Samaria Trumps Saudi Peace

Photo Credit: Yossi Aloni/Flash90

Then-Foreign Minister Eli Cohen at the ministry in Jerusalem, June 12, 2023.

If the choice is sovereignty in Judea and Samaria or a peace deal with Saudi Arabia, he would choose sovereignty, Israeli Energy and Infrastructure Minister Eli Cohen (Likud) says.

“It is important for me to say that between the Jordan River and the Sea, there will only be one state,” Cohen told Makor Rishon in an interview on Friday.

“The path of the ideological right has proven to be the correct one, and we must take advantage of [U.S. President-elect Donald] Trump’s rule to apply sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” he continued. “We are already preparing the ground for annexation in Judea and Samaria.”

Long-time activists Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, leaders of the Sovereignty Movement, an organization founded in 2011 to advance the idea of annexing Israel’s biblical and historic heartland, praised Cohen’s comments.

“Minister Eli Cohen, the Jewish majority and Jewish history stand by your side, on the side that is just, moral, Zionist, and the one that, God willing, will prevail,” they said, according to a Nov. 30 statement by the group.

Katsover and Matar have argued that the Oct. 7, 2023, which took place on the Simchat Torah holiday, Hamas attack was a result of Israel’s failure to extend sovereignty over places such as Gaza.

“In our view, the harsh and terrible reality in which we find ourselves since the morning of Simchat Torah is the result of the failure to apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and Gaza,” they wrote.

“This failure was interpreted as the Jewish people’s denial of its past, a lack of faith in the righteousness of its path. This was the impetus for our enemies’ attack. Victory over them will come only when Israel takes the just and moral step of applying sovereignty over its land, which will eradicate the possibility of establishing an enemy state on it,” they said.

Trump administration officials, past and present, recently have made statements in favor of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

The decision to extend Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria is one “for Israel to make,” incoming U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said last month.

In late October, a Jerusalem conference called for applying Israeli rule in the area, using as a template former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman’s latest book, “One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”