Speaking with Daniella Weiss, the “grand old lady” of the settlement enterprise, you would never guess that she has reached her 70s. Today, her smiling face possesses the same youthfulness and charm that it did during her activist years with the Gush Emunim Movement in the 1970s and early ‘80s, when she served as its general director.
Born in Tel Aviv to an American father and Polish mother who both enlisted in Lehi to join its battle against the British, Weiss is a longtime spokesperson for the settlement cause, and her strong nationalist views have often pitted her against the Yesha establishment leadership. In 1996, she became the mayor of Kedumin (originally called Elon Moreh), the first Jewish settlement in the Shomron – which she helped to build – and served in that position for 11 years.
After the evacuation of Gush Katif in 2005, and the subsequent crisis throughout the settlement movement, Daniella formed Nachala upon the encouragement of Rabbi Moshe Levinger to continue the mission of Gush Emunim. The organization is largely composed of young idealists who seek to purchase available tracts of land and lay the groundwork for new Jewish communities throughout Yesha.
Before the coronavirus pandemic broke, Weiss was traveling throughout the country, warning people of the hidden dangers of the Trump peace plan.
The Jewish Press: Should Israel accept the Trump peace plan considering that it calls for extending Israeli Sovereignty over the existing Jewish communities in Yesha?
Weiss: Absolutely not. The government of Israel must reject the plan completely. It is a time-bomb of terrible danger. It is a trap coated with honey. The clause regarding sovereignty is only a part of the overall plan, which will eventually award 90 percent of Yesha to the Arabs.
Isn’t it 70 percent?
When you remove the Jordan Valley from the picture, which will remain under Israeli rule, the Arabs get 90 percent of what’s left of Yesha. Elon Moreh and Itamar will be joined to the Jordan Valley by an alternate highway, and a by-pass road will connect Kiriat Arba-Hevron to Beer Sheva.
Highway 60 falls in the center of what will be a Palestinian state, G-d forbid, under Arab control. Har Bracha and Yitzhar will be totally engulfed by the Palestinian state, along with 13 other settlements. And Jerusalem will have two capitals – one for us, and one in East Jerusalem for the Arabs.
By agreeing to the clause of sovereignty, we obligate Israel to all of the other clauses as well. It is an illusion to think we can take only the honey from the beehive without getting stung by the bees, including a four-year building freeze in the settlements, followed by a huge transfer of land to the Arabs, followed by the establishment of a Palestinian state.
If we enter into the plan, we will lose all control of our destiny. Who can say how it will finish?
Some settlement leaders support immediately declaring sovereignty over certain areas in the West Bank, maintaining that Israel has nothing to fear because the Arabs will never agree to the type of demilitarized Palestinian state outlined in the plan.
That is an illusion. They are leading the public astray. Once an international agreement is publicly accepted – as this one already has been by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who praises it at every opportunity – it has international recognition and force and becomes the basis for future political traps.
But unlike Sharon’s bulldozing forward with the preparations to uproot Gush Katif before Knesset ratification, today we are dealing with the creation of a terrorist haven in the very heartland of the country, 10 miles from Netanya and the Ben Gurion Airport, a terrible danger to the entire country.
Trump may have been a friend until now, but he won’t be president forever. If a Democrat comes after him, he can easily change things as he deems fit, crossing out the demilitarization clause, for example, in order to make the plan more palatable to the Arabs. Who knows what will be?
America knows how to exert pressure. And Bibi, or whoever follows him in office, may not be able save the settlements and prevent the formation of a Palestinian state. Agreeing to the sovereignty section of the Trump plan confirms the fact that Israel agrees to a Palestinian state within its borders, because the plan is one unit, not separate pieces which can be divided, some accepted and some not. It is a political danger, a security danger even greater than Oslo, and a grave moral danger.
Not even the gentiles are willing to give away chunks of their homeland – how much more so when we are talking about the land that the master of heaven and earth bequeathed to our forefathers?
Biblical promises don’t carry much weight in the United Nations, though.
Biblical declarations count a lot in the United States where millions of Americans believe in the Bible. The moment the American public realizes that the Trump plan endangers the safety of the Jewish people in Israel, they will not accept it.
If not the Trump plan, what then?
Am Yisrael must continue to carry out the Divine commandment to conquer and settle all of the Land of Israel and to keep it all under Jewish sovereignty. Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook said it, Rav Goren said it, and Rav Levinger, leader of the settlement movement, proclaimed again and again that Am Yisrael must continue to build on every hilltop and in every open valley.
The Zionist enterprise brought tremendous success in the past, and we must strive forward with its banner upraised. The Torah forbids us to surrender even a square centimeter of our land to anyone. All the more so to an enemy who vows to chase us into the sea. We must build new Jewish communities all over, and expand existing settlements.
Politicians do not have any right whatsoever to relinquish any parcel of Eretz Yisrael because the Land of Israel belongs to all of the Jewish People for all eternity.
Are you arguing that the government shouldn’t apply sovereignty over portions of Yesha?
If the government isn’t prepared to declare sovereignty over all the Land of Israel – which it cannot at this time given the lack of unity in the nation regarding this matter and given the strong international and, most likely, American opposition – then, yes, the idea should be dropped.
Instead of agreeing to a very limited sovereignty which is tied to the recognition of a Palestinian state, the government of Israel should return to the Zionism that built the country, filling all corners of the land with new Jewish communities while, at the same time, embarking on a national project of mass aliyah to fill up the new houses and communities with Jews.