Some 10 minutes into an interview at in the lobby of the Carnegie Hotel in midtown Manhattan on Dec. 20, JNS drew a rudimentary map of Israel in a notebook to better understand what Israel Ganz, the new chairman of the Yesha Council, was referring to as he discussed terror activity in Judea and Samaria.
Ganz, the longtime head of the Binyamin Regional Council, overseeing 55 towns with 85,000 residents as part of Israel’s largest council in the heart of Judea and Samaria, asked to borrow a pen from JNS. He drew a more detailed map of the region and showed how the Binyamin region is in the heartland of the Jewish state.
“We must thoroughly inspect the area to ensure there are no missiles,” he told JNS. “A month ago, the army discovered a weapons transport, and Iran is involved in all these threats and there is a real danger. Imagine a missile hitting an airplane before it lands at Ben-Gurion Airport. It would be catastrophic and just one act of terror can cause such a disaster.”
Among many subjects upon which Ganz touched in a far-ranging interview, which ran about 45 minutes, he addressed potential policy changes under the incoming Trump administration and what he described as a frosty relationship with the Biden administration.
“The outgoing administration spoke about us,” he told JNS. “They didn’t speak to us.” He added that he and colleagues had difficulty speaking with U.S. envoys in Israel for years.
Ganz expects President-elect Donald Trump and his administration to have a more positive relationship with residents of Judea and Samaria because it is “much more connected” in the region.
“They know the area. They all came there and saw with their eyes,” he said. “They understand the situation.” Without knowing what policies the new administration will pursue, Ganz predicted that it “will be much more open to hearing what the State of Israel will have to say.”
“When you have someone that you can speak with, it’s a different conversation,” he said. “I don’t know what the exact results of the conversation will be, but it will be a conversation where at least we can express our point of view and know we are being listened to.”
‘Not a politician’
Ganz sat down with JNS amid a two-week trip in the United States, during which he spoke to Jewish communities about strengthening the position of Judea and Samaria in the forthcoming administration.
“I’m not a politician,” he said, although he told JNS that he had long seen “internal issues” that jeopardized security in Judea and Samaria.
“We woke up as a state. We all woke up” after Oct. 7, he said. “We didn’t believe that thousands of people could come and video themselves committing the most vicious acts of terror on women and children. The structure of terror in Judea and Samaria is the same as in Gaza.”
The Palestinian Authority is not a moderating force in the region and supports terror, according to Ganz.
“It’s so clear today, and it was clear before, that the Palestinian Authority supports terror in Judea and Samaria, and it’s untenable,” he added. “When terrorists are killed, representatives from the Palestinian Authority come to the funeral and speak there and they deny the Holocaust.”
The lack of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria holds both Israelis and Palestinians back, according to Ganz.
“Palestinians and Israelis here are like hostages to the uncertainty of the future of the area,” he told JNS. “When I approach the Israeli government and say, ‘We need to expand infrastructure, allocate funding and build for the future,’ they respond with, ‘We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, and we don’t want the United States to say we’ve taken a side.’”
“The reality is that we share a common infrastructure,” he said, of Palestinians and Jews in Judea and Samaria.
“Managing wastewater treatment facilities is a shared project regardless of political authority, so how can we ask the State of Israel to invest in infrastructure without sovereignty?” he said. “To me, this is a critical and fundamental difference.”
Ganz told JNS that his role as an administrator in Judea and Samaria, where he said he manages some 2,500 employees and an annual budget of about 1 billion shekels (about $270 million), affects Palestinians indirectly.
“Ninety percent to 95% of Palestinians live in areas A and B of Judea and Samaria. That was part of the agreement, and my responsibility is for Area C only, so I don’t deal with policy,” he said. “But on matters of water and electricity, I have to deal with solutions for everyone.”
“Palestinians must drive through my roads and must use my electricity system, and I have to fight for our infrastructure, which is a common infrastructure,” he said.
Ganz has major new development plans for the Binyamin Region, including building a medical center in the Sha’ar Binyamin industrial zone in the heart of the region. He thinks the medical center will benefit both Israelis and Palestinians in the area.
A month ago, Ganz witnessed a terrible car accident, he told JNS.
“On my commute home from Jerusalem one morning, I saw three cars in front and I ran and took someone out while he was on fire and he was unconscious,” he said. “He was Palestinian, and I saved his life because 30 seconds later the whole car blew up.”
“I don’t ask, ‘Who are you?’ My people, with my ambulances, you don’t ask, ‘Who are you?’” he said. “We have to help our whole area. It’s my responsibility, and I’ll do that.”
“Everyone that has an interest in this area can come,” he added. “It’s an industrial area with shopping, and anyone can come, but they have to go through security like you and me.”
