Five MKs from Likud hosted a conference in the Knesset on Monday titled “Sovereignty Now – Realizing the Window of Opportunity to Apply Sovereignty to Judea and Samaria.”
The conference was organized in cooperation with an NGO called The Sovereignty Movement, led by Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar.
Energy Minister Eli Cohen (Likud) said during the conference that as foreign minister, he had been willing to “give up on peace and normalization with Saudi Arabia” if it required a pathway to Palestinian statehood.
Cohen said that there would “only be one Jewish state between the Jordan [River] and the [Mediterranean] Sea,” and that the government should work toward settling one million Jews in the West Bank. He did not specify what the status of the West Bank Palestinians would be.
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli commended the “farms” in the West Bank, many of which are unrecognized by Israeli authorities. He praised Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter for enabling “grazing grants” to shepherds in these farms. He also praised the government’s decision to recognize 22 new settlements.
Cohen commended former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman for the first Trump administration’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights. According to Cohen, the move was a victory over “left-wing governments,” which had been willing to give up the Golan Heights in exchange for normalization with Syria.
In his speech at the conference, Friedman outlined his “Puerto Rico framework” for the West Bank. Puerto Rico is an American territory with local governance, but its residents do not vote in the national election. Friedman argued that the same should be applied to Palestinians residing in Judea and Samaria, and declared that the “two-state illusion is dead.”
The five Likud members who initiated the conference were MKs Moshe Passal, Keti Shitrit, Avichay Boaron, Dan Illouz, and Ariel Kallner. In addition to Cohen and Chikli, other Likud politicians who attended included MK Osher Shekalim, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, and Economy and Industry Minister Nir Barkat.
In his speech, Illouz argued that there could not be victory in the war without applying sovereignty to the West Bank. The world appreciates decisiveness, not hesitancy, and Israel needs to act decisively if it wants to be victorious, Illouz said.
Maj.-Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen argued in a lecture at the conference that Israeli military presence was necessary at a series of high points in the West Bank to ensure the security of its key population centers. The IDF presence was small, and therefore, settlements were necessary as well, Hacohen argued.
He also argued that “demilitarization” of a future Palestinian state was an “empty concept” since in today’s day and age, many military technologies, such as drones, have dual purposes and therefore could be purchased for civilian uses and easily adapted for military use.
Hacohen also argued that settlements in the West Bank would solve the congestion in Israel’s coastal plain.
What is the legal status quo in the West Bank?
According to Israeli law, the current status of the territories it captured from Jordan in the Six Day War, except for east Jerusalem, is that of a “temporary belligerent occupation,” and the legal governor of the territories is the commanding officer of Central Command.
During the Oslo Accords, signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s, the territories were split into three different designations: Area A, chiefly Palestinian towns and cities, which are under full security and civilian control of the PA; Area B, which is under Israeli security control but Palestinian civil control; and Area C, which is under Israeli security and civilian control.
Israel’s approximately 500,000 settlers reside primarily in Area C. Israel views the majority of its settlements as legal under domestic law, built on state land and in accordance with legally viable government decisions.
A majority of international organs view the settlements as a violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which outlaws settling civilians in conquered territory. However, Israel has argued in its defense that Israeli citizens were neither deported nor transferred to the territories and that the territory is not occupied since there had been no internationally recognized legal sovereign prior.
In 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion that Israel’s presence in the West Bank itself was no longer temporary and, therefore, unlawful.