CBN terror analyst Erick Stakelbeck visited Judea and Samaria as the guest of the Shomron (Samaria) regional authority last week.

“I’m just honored to be here,” he said, “and I have to say… my dad he would always talk about ‘the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ He wouldn’t just say ‘G-d’, he would say ‘the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ So to walk on the land where they walked, I have to pinch myself.

“I’m a guy from humble beginnings,” he explained, “in Philadelphia, northeast Philadelphia. I never thought I’d be here, in a place like Samaria.

“I never thought I’d be in a place like Hevron, the other day, at the Cave of the Patriarchs, and I almost shed a tear when I left. The G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, right? Well, there are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, at the Cave of the Patriarchs, you can only do that in Israel.”  

Stakelbeck’s hosts took him for a drive on the Cross-Samaria Highway, to show him how narrow Israel’s’ “waist line” is. He visited a plastics factory at the Barkan Industrial Center, and met staff of the University College of Ariel. After lunch at Rechelim, he met with regional authority head Gershon Mesika, along with David Ha’ivri of Samaria Foreign Liaison and Yossi Dagan of the Strategic Unit.