Pollard: Israel’s misguided strategy in Judea and Samaria is dangerous

Expanding Jewish communities without securing Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria could leave Israel dangerously exposed to its enemies.

By Jonathan Pollard

Commenting on the prominent role of Muslim immigrants in the anarchy now gripping France, Douglas Murray wrote: “If you do not confront and remove those who hate you when they so amply demonstrate that hatred, then France too—even France—will become nothing more than a beautiful name.”

I was reminded of this observation when I watched a video showing my friend, Knesset candidate Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, coming under attack from Arab rock-throwers in the Area B village of Turmus Ayya.

The assault took place during a tour organized by Regavim and was, by all appearances, entirely unprovoked.

What makes the incident particularly striking is that Turmus Ayya is a relatively affluent community, with an estimated 80–90 percent of its residents holding dual U.S.-Palestinian citizenship.

This was not an impoverished refugee camp struggling with inadequate infrastructure or sewage running through its streets. Yet the hostility directed at Fleur and her party was unmistakable.

What, then, are we to make of this?

The significance of this incident extends far beyond the stones thrown at a visiting Israeli delegation. It illustrates a much deeper problem that successive Israeli governments, including those claiming to represent the nationalist right, have consistently failed to confront.

Significant elements of Palestinian society continue to regard Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria as fundamentally illegitimate and believe that it must ultimately be defeated.

Those inclined to dismiss such hostility as the product of isolated extremists should consider the findings of post–October 7 polling documenting substantial Palestinian support for the Hamas massacre.

The implications of such attitudes cannot be ignored, particularly when evaluating policies that assume coexistence and security can be achieved without fundamentally altering the political and strategic realities on the ground.

Decades of Palestinian Authority indoctrination, combined with successive Israeli governments’ indecision over sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, have reinforced the belief that Israel can ultimately be driven from its biblical heartland.

Every year that passes without a clear and enforceable Israeli policy only strengthens the perception that Jewish control of the region is temporary, negotiable, and ultimately reversible.

And how has Israel responded?

Too often, with a bewildering combination of contradictory measures: the destruction of Jewish hilltop communities, administrative detention of Jewish activists suspected of violence, sweeping official condemnations of so-called “settler violence,” and intermittent arrests of Arab terrorism suspects.

Meanwhile, Yair Golan has advocated evacuating unauthorized outposts and separating Israel from the Palestinians rather than extending Israeli sovereignty over the entire region.

Gadi Eisenkot has called for stronger enforcement against settler violence while supporting the continuation of Palestinian self-government. Neither approach resolves the fundamental question of permanent Israeli sovereignty that the nationalist camp itself has repeatedly failed to address.

The result is a profound strategic inconsistency. Israel cannot credibly maintain that Judea and Samaria are indispensable to its national security while pursuing policies that leave its sovereignty uncertain and its Jewish communities vulnerable.

Such contradictions only encourage Israel’s adversaries to believe that sufficient pressure will eventually force another Israeli withdrawal.

The dangerous illusion of settlement expansion

And what of our so-called religious nationalists?

Contrary to what Bezalel Smotrich and other advocates of settlement expansion may believe, constructing additional Jewish communities will not, by itself, guarantee the success of their agenda.

Building settlements without establishing a coherent security and sovereignty policy is like building grass huts in a fire zone.

Our adversaries understand the vulnerability created by this contradiction, even if the lesson appears to have been lost on too many right-wing political leaders and sovereignty activists.

The number of new homes constructed, roads paved, or communities established cannot serve as the ultimate measure of Israel’s success in Judea and Samaria.

Such achievements may strengthen the Jewish presence on the ground, but they cannot substitute for the political authority and military determination required to ensure that this presence is permanent and defensible.

Indeed, settlement expansion without a comprehensive strategic framework risks creating additional vulnerable communities whose residents must depend upon an increasingly strained security apparatus.

Meanwhile, the underlying political conditions that encourage hostility remain fundamentally unchanged.

This is the contradiction that Israel’s nationalist leadership must confront. If Judea and Samaria are truly indispensable to the country’s security and national future, why should their status remain subject to indefinite political ambiguity?

Why should Jewish communities continue to expand without a corresponding commitment to the sovereignty and security arrangements necessary to protect them?

Sovereignty must be accompanied by security

For me, the only durable solution must begin with the unequivocal reestablishment of Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, accompanied by a comprehensive security strategy.

Such a strategy must protect both the Jewish communities of the region and the vulnerable towns along the Seam Line, including Kfar Saba, Rosh HaAyin, El’ad, Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut, and Bat Hefer.

The security of these communities cannot be separated from the broader question of who ultimately exercises authority over the territory overlooking them.

The notion that Israel can indefinitely preserve strategic control while leaving the region’s political future unresolved has already produced decades of uncertainty, recurring violence, and dangerous expectations among those who believe Israeli determination will eventually collapse.

Nor can sovereignty be reduced to a formal declaration or symbolic legislative achievement. Without dismantling terrorist infrastructure, suppressing incitement, and establishing a credible security doctrine, it risks becoming little more than another political slogan.

The establishment of sovereignty must therefore be understood not as the conclusion of a national struggle, but as the beginning of a sustained obligation to exercise effective authority and defend Jewish communities.

The lessons Israel must draw from October 7

The massacre of October 7 demonstrated, with catastrophic consequences, the danger of allowing wishful thinking and political convenience to substitute for a coherent security doctrine.

The belief that hostile organizations could be contained, deterred, or managed indefinitely proved to be a disastrous miscalculation, one whose consequences continue to shape Israel’s national life.

Yet it would be a grave mistake to imagine that the lessons of that catastrophe apply only to Gaza.

In Judea and Samaria, Israel faces a different but no less consequential set of strategic challenges, particularly given the region’s proximity to the country’s principal population centers and the vulnerability of communities along the Seam Line.

Allowing hostile forces to consolidate their capabilities in such a geographically sensitive area could threaten far more than the Jewish communities located within Judea and Samaria itself.

In the wake of October 7, many Israelis have concluded that establishing a Palestinian state under present conditions would pose an unacceptable security risk.

But rejecting Palestinian statehood, however justified one may consider that position, does not by itself constitute a strategy. Nor does indefinitely continuing the existing arrangements answer the fundamental questions of sovereignty, security, and political authority.

Israel must decide what it intends Judea and Samaria to become, what responsibilities it is prepared to assume, and what measures are necessary to secure its national interests over the long term.

Such decisions will inevitably invite diplomatic opposition, possible sanctions, and serious legal challenges.

These consequences require careful consideration, but the prospect of international criticism cannot replace strategic judgment or relieve Israel’s leaders of their responsibility to protect the country.

A responsibility greater than politics

The reestablishment of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria would represent a historic development, one whose religious and national significance many Jews would regard as second only to the rebuilding of the Temple.

For those of us who understand the Land of Israel as a divine inheritance, sovereignty is not merely a question of political administration or military necessity.

It is an expression of the Jewish people’s enduring national and spiritual bond with the land of our forefathers.

Yet precisely because the stakes are so profound, the pursuit of sovereignty demands far more than declarations of religious conviction, the construction of additional communities, or the celebration of incremental political achievements.

It requires leaders who understand that preserving our historic inheritance depends upon the willingness to exercise authority, accept responsibility, and defend what we claim to hold sacred.

Douglas Murray warned that France, by failing to confront the forces threatening its national identity, could one day become nothing more than a beautiful name.

Israel must not allow Judea and Samaria to suffer a comparable fate, preserved in our prayers, our history, and our biblical memory while the opportunity to secure them is gradually surrendered through indecision and political cowardice.

The Jewish people did not return to their ancestral homeland merely to commemorate what once existed there. We returned to restore our national life, defend our inheritance, and assume responsibility for our future.

If we continue to confuse settlement construction with genuine sovereignty, and political declarations with the determination to enforce them, we risk losing through indecision what generations of Jews struggled to reclaim.

Neither history nor God will absolve us of the responsibility for having ignored the warnings while there was still time to act.