Daniella Weiss

Daniella Weiss (דניאלה וייס; born August 30, 1945) is a far-right Israeli Orthodox Zionist settlement movement extremist, and a former mayor of Kedumim, an Israeli settlement located in the West Bank.

Daniella Weiss was born in Bnei Brak, Palestine, in 1945.

Her father was from the United States and her mother was born in Poland and raised in Palestine since her first year of life.

Both Jewish immigrants, they were members of Lehi, an ultranationalist Jewish terrorist group, and took part in underground activities.

She attended a religious high school in Ramat Gan, and studied as part of the Atuda program.

She studied English literature and political science at Bar-Ilan University.

Since the 1970s, Weiss has been a notable figure in the Gush Emunim settlement movement, active in the establishment of many new communities in the Shomron.

Weiss became the secretary-general of Gush Emunim.

In May 1987, after a Jewish woman died in a firebomb attack, Weiss led a vigilante group on a shooting and rock-throwing rampage through the town of Qalqiliya.

She was sentenced to a fine and a suspended sentence.

She was first elected mayor of Kedumim in September 1996, and was re-elected for a second term in November 2001 through 2007.

In June 2007, she was charged with obstructing a police officer in the line of duty and assaulting a police officer.

She was sentenced to 5 months probation.

On October 3, 2008, she was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer, interfering with a police investigation, and hindering a police officer in the performance of his duty.

She was released from house arrest pending trial on October 6, 2008.

She was arrested, and promptly released, in December 2008 in Hebron.

In May 2009, Weiss was arrested for assaulting a police officer and obstruction of an investigation.

She was sentenced to two days under house arrest.

Daniella Weiss rejects the price tag policy, saying that it had diverted settlers from what she considered to be their most important task - setting up additional caravans and tents to lay claim to ever more hilltops in the Shomron.

She has stated that the only "price tag" action acceptable to her is the establishment of a new outpost in response to every outpost that had been demolished by Israeli authorities.

In a 2023 interview with the New Yorker, Weiss said that Arabs "lost their right to vote for the Knesset. They will never get this right", and when asked how she felt about the deaths of Palestinian children, replied that "[m]y children are prior to the children of the enemy, period."

Weiss made the statement of what drives the Israeli push to settle Jewish land: ″In Israel, there’s a lot of support for settlements, and this is why there have been right-wing governments for so many years.

The world, especially the United States, thinks there is an option for a Palestinian state, and, if we continue to build communities, then we block the option for a Palestinian state.

We want to close the option for a Palestinian state, and the world wants to leave the option open.

It’s a very simple thing to understand.″