Atoning for the land

This past week contained two significant anniversaries, both of which underline how we have not shown enough appreciation or love for the holy soil upon which we tread.


Michael Freund
Fundamentally Freund/JPost
17 September '10

It is the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Naturally, it is a time of reflection, a period when each of us is called upon to examine our deeds and confront the reality of our own foibles and failings.

Few of us can claim to be living up to the ideals that we often set for ourselves, as life is often fraught with setbacks and challenges. But our tradition teaches that we must never despair, nor forgo the opportunity to continually strive and improve ourselves.

What is true for individuals is no less true for a nation, and it is time for us to come to terms with an uncomfortable and embarrassing truth: We need to atone for our treatment of this very special land.

Ever since the miraculous events of the 1967 Six Day War, successive governments have turned their backs on various parts of our historic patrimony, treating them as little more than bargaining chips or mere real estate. In just the past few decades, Israel has turned over Sinai, withdrawn from Gaza, retreated from parts of Judea and Samaria and offered to cede control over eastern Jerusalem.

However well-intentioned it may have been, this steady march of capitulation has brought the nation little more than a bitter dose of violence and bloodshed. And it has been an affront, a vulgar insult, to the land itself.

INDEED, THIS past week contained two significant anniversaries, both of which underline how we have not shown enough appreciation or love for the holy soil upon which we tread.

The first was on Monday, which marked 17 years since the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords on the White House lawn, when Israel undertook to hand territory over to the Palestinians. That dreadful deal laid the groundwork for the return of the PLO, and set off a wave of terror and bloodshed that was unprecedented in Israel’s modern history.

Nearly two decades later, we are still grappling with the consequences, which now see a fundamentalist Hamas regime in Gaza and a hostile Palestinian Authority leadership ensconced in Ramallah.

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