Among the MKs, party officials and activists at last week’s Likud party mock party primaries – known as the “Likudiada” – was Nadia Matar, Co-Chair of the Women in Green organization (WiG).
Over the past half-decade WiG has led a campaign for Israeli to annex and apply full Israeli law in Judea and Samaria. Known as the “Sovereignty Initiative”, it has gained steam over past several years, including endorsement from leading Likud MKs and ministers.
Speaking to Arutz Sheva on Friday, Matar explained that in her view the Israeli Right needed to provide an alternative to the Left’s “two-state solution” vision, now more than ever. “For too many years the national camp has been saying no to a Palestinian state, no to capitulation to terror, no, no, no. But what is our “yes”? What is our vision?”
Matar said her and her fellow Co-Chair Yehudit Katsover were in Eilat for the Likud mega-event to encourage “those people in Likud who already believe in it (“Sovereignty”), but needed a little bit more of a push.”
Prominent Likudniks who have openly endorsed WiG’s campaign – including in the group’s monthly publication, Sovereignty Magazine – include Minister of Immigrant Absorption and Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Ze’ev Elkin; Tourism Minister Yariv Levin; Sports and Culture Minister Miri Regev; Transport Minister Haim Katz; and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein.
“We came to tell the Likud: you are in power now, it is not enough to say no to a Palestinian state – what is now needed is a vision,” Matar said. “What is our vision? Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, because all of Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel – ed.) belongs to us.
“Most people know now that the two-state solution… the call for a Palestinian state, is passe,” Matar asserted. “Everyone knows that the creation of a Palestinian state in our homeland, in the Biblical heartland, is a call to suicide.”
While acknowledging that Israeli annexation of Judea and Samaria – which, unlike the Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem, was not annexed after the Six Day War but remained under IDF military rule – would pose significant challenges.
But, she argued: “We’d rather have to deal with difficulties than with the suicidal plan of the two state solution.”
