There will be no sovereignty applied in Judea and Samaria in 2021 or, it stands to reason, in 2022. And probably not in 2023 either. The champagne popping over the historic sovereignty initiative was replaced with champagne popping over the historic peace deals with the UAE and Bahrain. The bombastic newspaper headlines about sovereignty were replaced with headlines proclaiming a new Middle East, and the sour faces in the news studios curled their noses at peace instead of sovereignty. The application of Israeli law in wide swathes of Judea and Samaria was suspended indefinitely, and maybe for the best. The test of sovereignty is not over, it is only just beginning, and the challenges of sovereignty only intensify amid this almost-initiative.
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As with practical and diplomatic Zionism, so with sovereignty. There is diplomatic sovereignty, and there is practical sovereignty. The diplomatic and official sovereignty leans first and foremost on public opinion, which lays the groundwork for our elected officials and statesmen to take action. And therefore, the first order of business is to keep the discourse about sovereignty alive, kicking and reasonable. For decades it was completely absent from the Israeli public conscious, and in recent years we managed to imprint it deeply, albeit not enough. The sovereignty paradigm as an alternative to withdrawals is still on unsolid ground.
The second order of business, which is no less important, is practical sovereignty. On the ground. Before anything else, the map the US administration drew up for the deal of the century was based on the facts on the ground. I don't like the map, I think it is full of holes and problems, but it's hard to ignore the delineation connecting the communities. On the ground today the situation is exceedingly bad. In the past half year, no new construction permits have been granted, and the responsibility for this falls on the shoulders of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Meanwhile, the Palestinians have not stopped building for a second. They build, plant, sow, construct new schools and water lines, cultivate the fields -- for the strategic purpose of seizing control of Area C.
The Palestinian Authority's "Fayyad Plan" is a planning and strategic masterpiece intended to establish facts on the ground, and the Israeli government has a lot to learn from it. If we don't wake up in time, that is to say yesterday, there won't be much left to fight over in terms of diplomatic sovereignty. The main task is to stop the mass-scale construction taking place in Area C, and push out the European donor countries -- which should focus on their own problems at home instead of our backyard.
I met this week with MK Nir Barkat of the Likud party. He built, together with the "Kohelet Forum" and "Shiloh Forum," a strategic plan for Judea and Samaria that makes much more sense and is predicated on three principles: settlement, tourism and employment. The plan essentially erases the Green Line and lays out, through a broad outlook, how to reach two million Israeli residents in Judea and Samaria.
To let life do the talking, in other words. In terms of tourism, 20 sites -- which encapsulate the heart of the biblical homeland -- were chosen across Judea and Samaria. The plan targets domestic and foreign tourists alike. To let history do the talking. The goal of the economic-employment aspect of the plan is to give a significant push and triple the number of mutual industrial zones in Judea and Samaria. To also let the economy do the talking. The plan is currently on-paper only and any action on the ground to make it a reality is still very far from happening.
Let us pray that this new year is also one of settlement. We should not shy away because the sovereignty bid was unsuccessful, rather look at the glass half-full and continue filling it. In words and thought, but also in deeds on the ground. Because sovereignty is achieved through action.
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