Israel Hayom..
04 January '13
Is there hope? For the situation, I mean. That’s what we’re hearing from various places. The question pops up as a defiant challenge whenever we reach the logical conclusion that in light of the geopolitical situation, which is changing before our eyes, and after twenty years during which the Palestinians have avoided making peace with us, we see no chance for real peace with our neighbors. Contrary to the usual propaganda, the dispute with them is not territorial, but much deeper. It has to do with the roots of the ancient myths and the religious disagreement between us and the Muslims.
As far as Islam is concerned, the Jews have no right to sovereignty over even part of the Land of Israel, which they consider wakf — sacred Muslim land. Even the moderate Ahmad Tibi was heard saying this week that he did not recognize the concept of the “Land of Israel.” So where is the hope?
Maybe this is where the fixing starts. For 2,000 years we held onto the hope of returning to our ancestral land and resuming life here as a free nation living in security on our own soil. During that time, there were those who gave up and vanished into the current of history. Those who believed kept on living as Jews in the shadow of death among the various peoples and nations, and waited.
We have been given a privilege that our ancestors never had. In the timeline of Jewish history, the State of Israel is still in its infancy. The return to Zion is not a matter of a generation or two. It is a long and profound process of brushing the dust of the exile off the body of our nation and restoring our national spirit.
Peace will not come through instant, magical solutions. It depends on our historical patience and faith in the positive direction of the return to Zion. Meanwhile, we will keep on doing what Zionism has done from the time it was first established and what the returnees to Zion did during the Second Temple era — build our nation and protect it. Plant it and guard it. The scythe and the sword.
“The dawn has broken. The morning star shines once again,” wrote the poet Nathan Alterman during the terrible days of World War II in his work “Songs of the Plagues of Egypt.” “Though it seems a mere fledgling, how high it flies.” There is nothing to fear from threats and impatience, since this is slow process of development, not a rapid revolution. It is like the morning star that heralds the light of day — a light “whose tiny, pure sandal the city elders, in wisdom or foolishness, kiss.”
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3172
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