Israel Hayom..
06 June '13..
Forty-six years ago, in six days of divine grace, Jewish history changed its course. Thanks to the determination of our fighters and the dedication displayed by the honorable fallen soldiers, we returned home, to the homeland where the character of the Jewish people was shaped for generations.
The War of Independence in 1948 ended in a big victory. Outnumbered, trapped under siege and stranglehold, the people of Israel burst forth into freedom and into the light. After the 1967 Six-Day War, suddenly we were able to see the words of the Bible come back to life in the Land of Israel. We were enthralled with the vision of Biblical prophecies coming true before our eyes. We shed tears of joy at the Western Wall -- the only remnant of our Temple. In six days, 2,000 years of crying and lamentation turned into an endless source of comfort.
During the Six-Day War, we did not conquer foreign land or anything that did not already belong to us. No one can label a people as conquerors in their own homeland. The Jews never stopped praying in the direction of Jerusalem, mourning the destruction of the land or trying to return to Israel despite countless obstacles and tribulations. The land waited patiently for its saviors to re-cultivate its vineyards and plow its earth.
Like many times in the past, various dream peddlers managed to turn a big day into a small moment. On many stages across Israel and around the world, many visionless, angry and pessimistic cultural figures tried to convince the people both inside Israel and outside it that the Israel Defense Forces are an occupying army, that the Six-Day War was the source of all our problems and crises and that the Jewish settlers, who put themselves in the front lines, pose an obstacle to peace. Never in the history of humanity has there been a peace that claimed so many lives.
The "occupation" theory collapsed in the face of the vision of a united Israel. In my youth, I heard this vision voiced in the campaign speeches of Likud leader Menachem Begin. Begin's strong belief in the unity of the Land of Israel was a wonderful mix of thousands of years of Jewish heritage, an affinity to the Jewish homeland and political realism anchored in a disillusioned analysis of the situation.
For years, however, I could not understand Begin's consent to recognize, as prime minister, the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, as stated in the peace agreement with Egypt. I once asked Yehiel Kadishai, Begin's close confidant, about it. His answer was that Begin believed that when the time would come to exercise those rights, the number of Jews living in the homeland, including Judea and Samaria, would nullify any possibility of giving territorial rights to the Palestinians within the Land of Israel -- rights that they never actually possessed.
These days, it is beginning to become clear that Begin was right on that issue as well. The spokespeople of the Israeli Left, who, for many years have been trying to convince the Israeli public that a return to 1967 borders will result in peace, have now accepted that a new, irreversible reality has emerged in Judea and Samaria.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews have built their homes in the historic Israeli homeland and every intelligent person understands that at this point they cannot be evacuated. Every life-loving Israeli living in Tel Aviv, Raanana or Netanya knows -- after the traumatic evacuation of the Gush Katif settlement bloc in Gaza -- that the settlers of Judea and Samaria are our guarantee that hostile enemies will not invade central Israel. The most leftist of the Israeli Left already knows that there is no point in signing peace agreements with collapsing, divided, unstable countries.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with his two-state vision, is trying to navigate the Jewish people through a hostile world. The world's sages are having trouble understanding why the Jews insist on surviving. How do you explain to the world that the Jews have been dreaming about this tiny piece of land for 2,000 years and are willing to fight for it for another 2,000 years? People of truth know that the two-state solution is not feasible. The minimum that the Palestinians demand is much more than the maximum that the State of Israel is willing to give, without putting its very existence in jeopardy.
That is why, if Israel wants to survive, it must continue building in Judea and Samaria and around Jerusalem. Millions of Jews living in those regions will ensure our grasp on our homeland for all eternity. It is no dream -- many Jews in the world are already beginning to realize that the time has come for them, too, to return home.
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=4573
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