After the U.S. presidential election in November, Israel should claim sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and offer local autonomy but not voting rights to Palestinians, David Friedman, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said at the Knesset on Tuesday.
Friedman’s remarks came a day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress, and about four years after former President Donald Trump approved the Jewish state’s annexation of some 30% of the disputed territory.
“It doesn’t matter if you are a person of faith or an atheist, this is the best outcome for regional stability, for Israel and all its neighbors,” Friedman said in a keynote address at the Knesset’s Israel Victory Caucus.
The former U.S. envoy admitted that his plan couldn’t “get done tomorrow” and needs “buy-in from the rest of the world.” But he said that it’s the best alternative to a two-state solution, which he and many Israelis view as anathema but Washington and other countries see as the ideal resolution to the conflict.
“It’s not what America thinks, the United Nations thinks or the Quartet [composed of U.S., U.N., E.U. and Russian mediators] thinks. It’s what Israel thinks,” Friedman said in his first address to the Knesset since leaving public office in January 2021.
“The longer Israel punts this issue, the less seriously it will be taken by others when it makes the decision,” he added.
Friedman, whose book “One Jewish State” is due out in September, compared his plan for Palestinians to the situation of Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens and have local autonomy but don’t vote.
“Nobody accuses the United States of being an apartheid state,” he said.
Such a move would ensure the preservation of two Israeli Basic Laws by affording dignity and liberty to the Palestinians, while Jews would retain the right, uniquely, to a Jewish state, according to Friedman.
Friedman noted that the plan that Trump put forward in 2020 would have seen 30% of Judea and Samaria—or half of the area known as Area C—come under Israeli sovereignty.
“Even 30% was complicated,” he said.
Still, there has been a moment of clarity, where “politics and faith converged,” for Jews and Christians after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack, he said.
“It’s a dangerous time, but a time fraught with massive opportunities,” Friedman said. “The solutions are staring us in the face.”
