Oziel Vatik, the mayor of the Samaria village of Kedumim, was subjected to harassment and threats in New York while visiting the city as part of an official Yesha Council delegation on Sunday, he told JNS.
Vatik told JNS he was holding security consultations by phone following the deadly terrorist attack near Kedumim on Sunday when a woman came up to him and started shouting.
“She shouted at me: ‘You’re Israeli, you piece of...’ and other curses in English,” he said, adding: “Out of respect for you, I won’t repeat them.”
“Just as in Poland in 1910, when my grandfather was attacked and his sister was murdered for being Jewish, so too in New York in 2025 it is clear: the only safe place for Jews is the Land of Israel,” the mayor said.
“Sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley is essential to ensure Jewish security in Netanya, Kfar Saba, Tel Aviv and Kedumim,” he added.
The Yesha Council, which represents the 500,000-plus Jews of Judea and Samaria, dispatched a large “emergency delegation” to the United States after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would “not allow” Israel to extend sovereignty to Judea and Samaria.
Trump was set to welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday amid talks for a truce deal with Hamas.
The Yesha Council claimed in a statement on Saturday night that the establishment of a potential Palestinian state “is closer than ever, and the international pressure on Netanyahu to establish it is intensifying.”
Following a meeting between Netanyahu and the Yesha Council delegation in New York on Sunday, the group said it was “deeply concerned” by the premier’s failure to set a deadline for extending Israeli sovereignty.
Netanyahu told the Judea and Samaria leaders that he would tell Trump the region is inseparable from the Jewish state, according to the Council.
