Ahead of Israel expected to apply sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer said on Monday that the Trump administration’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan, released earlier this year, recognizes that land as integral to the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
“What’s different about it is first of all it recognizes the validity of Israel’s legal, historic, moral claim to these territories, Judea and Samaria, which is our ancestral homeland—those are the territories where the patriarchs of the Jewish people prayed, where our prophets preached and where our kings ruled,” said Dermer at the virtual summit hosted this week by Christians United for Israel in lieu of the organization’s annual summit in Washington, D.C.
In a recorded address to the CUFI summit on Sunday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touted the application of Israeli law to areas of Judea and Samaria, also commonly referred to as the West Bank, as a step that would “advance peace.”
Israeli Minister of Higher Education Ze’ev Elkin said on Tuesday that the government’s plans to extend sovereignty in parts of Judea and Samaria would not begin on July 1, as originally stated.