There is much noise surrounding our little land. The clamor of rival claims to the Land of Israel from the podiums of terrorist leaders ruling over a conjured up Palestinian people reverberates through the unhallowed halls of the United Nations. It is perpetuated by an Islamic cartel, anti-Israel NGO’s and an ill-educated and profoundly biased mainstream media.
As if the aforementioned were not galling enough, we are forced to contend with Jews who are stuck in a mindset of pleasing the enemy to the point of discounting their own identity, devaluing their own nation’s status, and consequently surrendering their heritage to the Land of Israel.
Many of these Jews go as far as placing the “sensitivities” of our sworn enemies before the lives of their own people and vociferously join anti-Israel NGO’s such as New Israel Fund, J Street, Jewish Voice of Peace, Peace Now, B’Tzelem, Yesh Din and Breaking the Silence. These Jews have chosen to stand with those who wish to deny the rights of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. A form of Stockholm Syndrome, if you will, left over from too many years of persecution and oppression under a myriad of unfriendly host countries.
But I’m not writing to argue against enemy narratives that are based on a deliberate and malevolent revision of history. Nor am I going to attempt in this missive to explain the Diaspora induced mental anarchy in the minds of some of our fellow Jews. Too limited a venue for the latter. I prefer only to state the obvious. The simple truth. With no apologies or drawn out explanations or justifications: The Land of Israel, in its entirety belongs to the Jewish Nation.
This unquestionably includes Yehuda and Shomron, in English, Judea and Samaria. It is an eternal gift from G-d. It is not up for debate. It is a truth not to be suppressed or obscured, especially in this twisted politically correct era we find ourselves in, where everything is all-inclusive to an insensible and perverse degree.
People are not all the same, neither are our legacies, and our differences ought to be respected, honored and celebrated rather than rejected. The Land of Israel does not belong to two different nations. It does not belong to the Arab people who are indigenous to Arabia. It does not belong to the Muslims. It does not belong to the Christians. It does not belong to the world of nations to do with it what it wills.
The Land of Israel belongs exclusively to the Jewish people. Plain and simple.
Our historical record buttresses our Divine right to the Land of Israel that is deeply ingrained in the Jewish heart.
Generally known as the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, a secular Jew who, after coming face to face with Jew hatred during the Dreyfus trial in 1894, revitalized the imperative for the Jewish people to settle the Land of Israel. He may have coined the term Zionism, but he didn’t take it out of thin air. Although secular, he knew that the word “Zion”, straight out of the Torah, stood for Jerusalem, as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole, and that settling Zion was inherent to our nation status. It may have taken the chants of “death to the Jews” to awaken his Jewish soul, but once it did, he naturally and instinctively turned to the Land of Israel with the intention of rejuvenating our homeland.
“Our attitude toward the land of our fathers is and shall remain unchangeable.” – Theodor Herzl
We don’t need fancy promotions or catchy slogans to defend our Divine right to the land. Nor do we need any gimmicks to prove we are indigenous to the land. To all of it. Judea and Samaria are not separate from the land. It is our heartland. It is the cradle of Jewish civilization.
The only thing necessary is the courage to proclaim the truth.
That it belongs to us is a basic truth rooted in our faith and authenticated by our history. It is that simple truth that defines us as a nation, the nation of Israel that is one with the Land of Israel. One entity. Inseparable.
It is an enduring, simple truth that has strengthened the Jewish nation throughout two excruciating millennium of relentless persecution until we prevailed in once again taking ownership of what is rightfully ours. Current political frolics notwithstanding, Israel, with our heartland of Judea and Samaria, and with Jerusalem as our eternal capital, is ours.
Apropos to our upcoming Hanukah holiday, where we celebrate our victory over Hellenist Jews who sought to dilute our religion with heathenism, enable the Greeks to contaiminate our Temple in Jerusalem, corrode our belief system and undermine our nationalist pride, we must today, once again and unapologetically take ownership of our heritage. We must peel off the layers of 2000 years-worth of recrimination, denunciation and contempt from the nations of the world and retrieve our self-respect. We, therefore, must strongly proclaim our rightful ownership of the Land of Israel with the honor and dignity it deserves, and with confidence in whom we are as a nation, asserting in no uncertain terms our biblical and indigenous rights to our land.
In the same vein, we owe no one any apologies, nor do we need to defend calling our country the Jewish State of Israel. We are not here to emulate other countries. We have no need to mimic others. Our God-given code of laws stands on its own and distinguishes us from the rest.
We are not obligated to define ourselves according to the sensitivities of others. While there is freedom of religion for all in the Jewish State of Israel, our country’s national holidays are Jewish – not Christian and not Muslim.
Respecting other religions and cultures does not necessitate embracing them.
Neither must we compromise our national symbols, be it the shield of David on our country’s flag, the lion of Judah as the official emblem of Jerusalem, or the menorah with olive branches as our official State emblem.
The menorah design from the Arch of Titus that once stood for the destruction of the Jewish state in 70 CE, now symbolizes rebirth with the return of the menorah as the official emblem of the reestablished State of Israel. It is a testimony to the eternity of the Jewish people in our land, where we, despite all odds, continuously maintained a presence, and we embrace our national symbols with the pride it deserves. We damn well earned it.
In just a few short months, the Jewish nation will celebrate the jubilee anniversary of the liberation of our heartland from a long line of foreign occupiers, the last one being Jordan. Rather than become fatal victims in the 1967 war where the Arab armies from all fronts aimed to annihilate us, we met this threat head-on and miraculously defeated our enemies in six days.
Judea and Samaria is, at long last, in the hands of its rightful owners.
We never lost hope, as our national anthem attests. For 2000 years, our hope stood the test of time with all its adversity to be a free nation in our own land.
We, the Jewish nation, the children of Israel, are one with the Land of Israel, in its entirety.
It’s not up for grabs. It belongs to us. End of discussion.
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