‘We in America have to help Israel grow more comfortable with the idea of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.’
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
Former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman talked to Israel National News about the futility of the two-state solution rhetoric, US pressure on Israel, and Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.
Friedman, chairman of the Jerusalem Conference in New York, met with journalists on Sunday in New York City.
He discussed the One Jewish State project, which strives for an alternative to the much-touted two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.
Friedman said that as soon as US President Joe Biden mentioned a two-state solution so soon after October 7th, he felt Israel should respond immediately because “it was so tone deaf.”
David Friedman said the conditions that led to October 7th were like a “dry run” for a Palestinian State.
He said, “We had a dry-run in Gaza, not a single Jew living there, not a single IDF soldier on the ground there, billions of dollars being given to them … and they took all the money and either pocketed it, or they built terror tunnels or weapons.”
He added, “We in America have to help Israel grow more comfortable with the idea of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.”
Friedman explained why he believed this solution should be acceptable to everyone.
“You can support this if you’re on the right because you’re happy about sovereignty; you can support this on the left if you think that Palestinians should have a better life.”
He added, “You can support this (Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria) if you’re secular because you just see it as the only way that Israel will ever have security, or you can support this if you’re religious and you think that this is the land given by G-d to the Jewish people, as I do.”
Although Saudi Arabia has said that a Palestinian State is a pre-requisite for normalization relations with Israel, David Friedman suggested that they are fully aware it isn’t a viable solution.
Friedman suggested that Israel approach their allies in the Gulf and say. ‘Look, you keep talking about a Palestinian state – you know that’s not going to work, we know that’s not going to work.'”
Friedman explained that he believes that Saudi Arabia doesn’t in actuality want a Palestinian State but that the Biden Administration is pushing a two-state solution and pretending that the impetus is coming from Saudi Arabia.
He said, “At the end of the day, everyone in the Middle East knows that a Palestinian state is a terror state.”
He added, “It’s a rebirth of Hamas; it’s a rebirth of the worst forces that confront not just Israel but the moderate Sunni nations as well.”