Wednesday, December 16, 2020
“Settlements” is the chosen subject of many a question posted
by the anti-Israel crowd on Quora.
The word has been, for ages, a dirty word in the lexicon of the Arab
War Against the Jews. And in fact, even among right-wing Israeli Jews, the
word “settlements” has fallen into disfavor. We don’t need this word, because it’s
enough to say we’re building homes. And
every human being has the right to shelter, especially in indigenous territory
where previously, no homes existed, land that was returned to Israel when the
Jews were attacked and fought back.
We didn’t ask for the wars. We have a right to the land we
regained. We have a right to shelter and to build homes on Jewish land. Full
stop.
The world, however, believes that Jews have no right to
shelter. They call the settlements “illegal.” Because they prefer to think of
it this way. And after Europe went ahead and murdered close to 7 million Jews
in the Holocaust, they now want us to have no place to go. They want to install
the Arabs on our land, strip the Jewish State of its ancient name “Israel,” and
revert instead to the insulting Roman designation of “Palestine.” They want to
take away Jewish land from the Jews and call it an Arab state.
Just as this antisemitic, anti-Israel crowd has managed to
turn reality on its head, robbing Jews of their rights to Jewish land and to
shelter, we have a responsibility to restore the narrative of truth, by
constantly driving these facts home to the public. Quora is a good place for
this. On Quora you have the anti-Israel crowd pushing lies, but you also have
people pushing back with the truth.
By way of example, not long ago, I was asked to answer the
following question
on Quora:
Why are Israeli settlements in the West Bank all over the place? Isn't this dangerous for Israel? Won't this culminate in a binational state as it makes it difficult to partition the land?
There were some pretty detailed responses among the answers,
but I kept my own response short and to the point, believing this to be better
absorbed by readers, and therefore more efficient than a long and wordy answer:
It’s not the West Bank. No water in sight. It is and has been for thousands of years, Judea and Samaria. It is part of Jewish indigenous territory, and like any other human beings, Jews have a right to shelter. No reason they shouldn’t build homes for themselves or establish towns and cities in their ancient homeland.
It takes very little time to craft a quick response like
this and to do so is as important as any other work we can do on behalf of
Israel and the Jewish people. Every time someone answers a lie with the truth,
the narrative of truth is strengthened and spreads further into the ether that
is public opinion. How do we know this work is bearing fruit? The UAE
will be importing olive oil and wine from Samaria, and Bahrain was going to
label items from Judea and Samaria as “made in Israel” before they retracted
that decision, presumably due to pressure from the PA.
At Chanuka time, we remember that the Greeks tried to Hellenize the Jews of Israel, forbidding circumcision, Sabbath observance, and the study of Torah. The Greek occupiers of Jewish land went so far as to sacrifice a pig on the altar of the Holy Temple, profaning everything that is holy to Jews. This is not much different than the way the UN and the EU collude with the PA, Hamas, and other Islamic extremists to drive Jews out of their land, their holy places, and into the sea. The ultimate goal is to separate Jews from their land and from Jewish observance, too. They may see Jewish practice as an affront to their beliefs, seeing as how Christianity and Islam were meant to supplant and obviate the need for Judaism.
Chanuka, however, is a time of miracles. We see our former
enemies coming to accept a Jewish presence in the Middle East. We watch as peace accords spring up, new ones almost every week, miracles in our own time. There
are good and practical reasons for making peace with Israel. But the accords and
newly formed diplomatic ties are also an acknowledgement of reality: the
Arabs lost. The Jews won and turned a barren, forsaken land into a busy and
bustling, successful modern state.
The peace accords come from the knowledge that the Jews have
more than earned the right to seek shelter: to live in and build homes on Jewish land. That comes from
simple people, like you and me, just putting the truth out there, over time. Slowly,
slowly, the truth is making inroads, like water dripping on a rock, gnawing away at the hard substance, and cracking it open over time.
Chag Urim Sameach!
