Daniella Weiss, Director of the Nahala Settlement Movement, tells Israel National News that Israel has reached a new era where Israelis who represent communities in Judea and Samaria have influence in the government.
“We have reached a point where the people with high ambition for the greater Israel, the idea that Judea and Samaria will be an inseparable part of the Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ashdod area – people who represent these areas and the settlers in these areas are now not only in the Knesset but in the cabinet,” Weiss says.
When asked about the reaction from the Biden administration to this development, she says:
“I understand why the US Administration is worried about it because that means the end of an option for a Palestinian state because we take all the 800,000 settlers that live across the green line with huge support from all over the country and we increase and support from all over the country and we increase and support and develop the areas of Judea and Samaria, so that there will be no option for any territory in between in which there can be a Palestinian state.”
She is overjoyed at the possibility that Bezalel Smotrich could become finance minister.
“I think that a settler – I love this word, people tell me don’t use it, but I love this word – in the highest degree of a ministry in Israel means power. I use "power" in the most positive way possible: influence, ability, motivation, power to change,” she says.
“The idea is national, there’s a change, there’s a revolution. Finally the settlers are not just the good guys who are ready to stay in tents on the mountain. Yes, we are ready to stay in tents and trailers but we also know how to run business.”
Responding to claims that even in the Likud, they’d rather that National Religious figures be on the sidelines and not have top level ministerial positions, she comments that leaders of communities in Judea and Samaria need to be at the top in order to bring about change.
“I understand why the last two years with Bennet and with Lapid were so difficult for the right and for the settlers,” she says.
She cautions people who are excited about seeing Netanyahu back as prime minister not to be complacent.
“It’s not let it work. It’s how will it work. Will there be a revolution? Will there be a change? Will there be an end to the Civil Administration? There must be an end to it. So in order for this to happen we must have at the top of the government the people who understand that as long as the Civil Administration works, we Jews, we settlers, we cannot live, because they keep destroying everything that we build, and whenever an Arab builds something illegal – an illegal building on a territory that he just grabbed from the settlements – that’s okay. So this must come to an end.”
There have been reports that Netanyahu told Smotrich that he wants to wait two years until Biden is out of office to give him a top level cabinet position. According to Weiss, that might be how things worked in the past, but today it is different.
“I wish he hadn't said those words,” she says. “On the other hand, I'm glad he said it because now that he said it, we know how he wants to continue. We will not let him continue in the same route that he used to walk to see what the Administration says, what the American president says. But he gave us a clear indication that it's the American president that he has to take into consideration before he proceeds. No. No more. It's not the American president that will tell him what to do. It’s the settlers that will tell him what to do. Thank G-d we have accumulated power.”
Weiss explains that the support for communities in Judea and Samaria comes not just from within Israel but also from around the world, including from people in the United States, England and Australia, from where a group of visitors recently visited Samaria.
“So many Jews the world over are happy that they see the settlement movement is not just a marginal phenomenon. It's the heart, it’s the core of Zionism today. I was longing for it for so many years. I'll tell you something, I woke up the day after I saw the results of the election, and the world was different. I was driving through Judea and Samaria and everything was bright and clean and I said, ‘Well, G-d gave me a sign that we are facing a new era.’”