At Channel 14’s Sovereignty Conference on Wednesday, Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, co-chairs of the Sovereignty Movement, presented their vision for applying Israeli law to Judea and Samaria. The two, who have been active in the field since the 2005 disengagement from Gush Katif, argued that the current situation—in which nearly a million Israelis live in territory without formal sovereignty—is a planning and economic distortion that must end.
Katsover traced the beginning of their joint activism to the aftermath of the disengagement plan: “In 2005 everyone was broken, but we decided to continue our work with even greater intensity to prevent another expulsion. We started redeeming land in Gush Etzion as a response to Arab takeover of state lands, but we realized you can’t ’empty the sea with a spoon’—you need to lead comprehensive political change.”
According to them, applying sovereignty is a simple step legally, already carried out in the past in Jerusalem in 1967 and 1980 and in the Golan Heights in 1981. Matar added that despite fears of world reaction, history proves such moves undergo “normalization” over time, as happened with the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem.
Matar presented during the interview the “National Outline Plan 35,” which shows Israel’s future development plans, and noted that Judea and Samaria appear in it as “a hole in the heart of the state.” “When the State of Israel doesn’t contain sovereignty, it signals to the world that it’s living in a rented apartment,” she explained. “In such a situation you can’t ‘hammer a nail’—entrepreneurs are afraid to establish factories or hotels in Judea and Samaria because everything is a question mark and everything can be overturned.”
According to their view, sovereignty is a tool for security and ideological victory: “The enemy draws hope from the fact that Israel hasn’t yet decided the territory is hers. The moment there is sovereignty, the hope for establishing a Palestinian state will die.”
The two emphasized that the events of October 7th specifically sharpened the need for the move. Katsover and Matar argued there’s no need to wait for formal cancellation of the Oslo Accords before applying sovereignty, but rather that sovereignty itself will cancel the agreements in practice.
“Apply sovereignty and it will cancel Oslo and the Palestinian Authority,” Katsover declared. The two concluded their remarks with a call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to adopt the 2017 Likud Central Committee decision and act to apply the law, based on the belief that “Israel must rule from the sea to the Jordan.”