Professors Amos Azaria of Ariel University and Shalom Sadik of Ben-Gurion University submitted her candidacy, citing her decades-long efforts in strengthening Jewish communities and promoting regional stability. The establishment of Jewish communities has prevented violence and enhanced security, they argued in a letter to the Nobel Prize Committee in Norway.

“While there is a significant Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, in Gaza – where the Jews were displaced in the 2005 disengagement – thousands of Jewish deaths and tens of thousands of Arab deaths were recorded. In Judea and Samaria, on the other hand, the figures are significantly lower, illustrating how the settlement, led by Weiss, was a factor in settlement that in practice prevented friction and large-scale wars,” Azaria and Sadik wrote.

Weiss, now 79, was a long-time active member of Gush Emunim, a religious-political movement founded in 1974 following the Yom Kippur War. She later served as the first mayor of Kedumim in northern Samaria from 1996-2007.