[Based on an article that originally appeared in Hebrew in Arutz Sheva, and translated by Hillel Fendel]
449,297. That's the number of Jews
who reside in Judea and Samaria, as of this past Dec. 31, according to Israel's
Interior Ministry. Practically 450,000 - a 3.25% jump in one year, nearly twice
the growth rate of Israel altogether. And it doesn't even include the 325,000
Jews living in the 24 new neighborhoods built in the parts of Jerusalem
liberated in 1967, such as Ramot, Pisgat Ze'ev, Gilo, and more.
When the Israeli nation is in Exile,
it becomes, most unfortunately, a blind people. Even the signs and wonders of
Moshe Rabbeinu in Egypt made no impression on the leaders and the majority of
the Israelites at the time. Today as well, after 140 years of settlement in the
Land of Israel and 70 years of independence politically, militarily, and
economically, there are still many too many Israeli political leaders and IDF
generals who have not yet been cured of the diseases of these terrible 2,000
years of Exile. The worst sickness of them all is "Jewish Ghetto
Disease."
Over the past 20 years, during the
terms of Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak – both IDF generals and/or
Chiefs of Staff – Israel has carried out two retreats. The first was in the
north, from southern Lebanon, during the term of PM Barak and Chief of Staff
Sha'ul Mofaz. The other was in the south, from Gaza and Gush Katif, conducted
by PM Sharon and Chiefs of Staff Mofaz and Dan Chalutz.
Both of these were accompanied by
the thunderous and unambiguous support of most of Israel's media.
And what were the results of these
two runaways? In the north, we have 140,000 Hizbullah rockets stocked in wait,
together with a network of attack tunnels, some of which have been detected and
neutralized by Israel. And in the south, we have a similar picture: another few
tens of thousands of rockets, supplemented by an unknown number of tunnels.
Both of these together have placed the State of Israel into tangible danger,
the likes of which we never knew before the two cowardly withdrawals.
So what is keeping our politicians,
particularly those on the left, from opening their eyes, learning the lessons,
and changing their minds? For Yair Lapid, Avi Gabbai, Tzippy Livni, Benny Gantz
and others, it's the old "Jewish Ghetto Disease" that has stricken
them. They are the secular version of Neturei Karta. A similar syndrome has
overtaken many of our leading media personalities, self-styled icons of
liberalism and morality such as Raviv Drucker, Amnon Abramovitch, Ilana Dayan
and Razi Barkai. Their dream is to return to the 1967 borders, to what they see
as the "holy" Green Line, and to uproot three generations of men,
women and children from their homes in Judea and Samaria whilst abandoning the
State of Israel's eastern border.
Yes, there are five million Jews
living in Israel's coastal plane, between Hadera and Gedera – but it's a form
of ghetto as well. Many of the leftwing-liberal elites seem to view it as their
only natural home – perhaps because it reminds them of the Jewish ghettos of
our ancestors in Warsaw, Lodz and Vilna, or of those in Cairo, Tunisia and
Morocco. "Here we will live forever, with some kind of wall between us and
Samaria, and bury our heads in the sand," we hear them saying. It
certainly fits the definition of a ghetto: only 9-13 kilometers (6-9 miles)
between the Mediterranean and the Green Line, it's a fine narrow ghetto in the
purest sense of the word. The main thing for them, it seems, is not to learn
from our mistakes in the north and south; "let's just withdraw in the east
as well."
The chances that we'll be able to
change their minds are not nil, but they are slim. We must turn to the new,
vibrant, young-at-heart generation that loves the life of national independence
– the generation that thrives on its bonds with the Bible and the Land of
Israel, and shuns the closed narrowness of small-mindedness ghetto life. We
must teach all of our children to love all of Eretz Yisrael; we must show them
that it is our own homeland, and we must imbue our curricula with its history.
No more Exile! No more ghettos! No more politicians and media experts who
wish to return us to dark periods in our history, and bring us again to
perpetual dependence upon foreign rulers and squires.
Let us be a free people, one that loves
its nationhood, its traditions and its legacy, in our own Land!