by Dror Eydar
Israeli society, for the most part, understands that the struggle is not only about Amona, but is actually a national battle for the right of the Jewish people to return home.
It's a relief to be
freed from uncertainty. The enemies of the settlements were hoping for a
violent clash between the pioneers on the hilltop and the security
forces, thinking that such images would cause the public to hate the
settlers.
But Israeli society,
for the most part, understands that the struggle is not only about
Amona, but is actually a national battle for the right of the Jewish
people to return home. There is a reason why the leftist groups are
investing an enormous amount of effort and money in trying to stop
Jewish settlements in the parts of the country that are most connected
to our identity as a people.
What's the real story
on Amona? The local Arabs refused to accept the resolution the United
Nations passed on Nov. 29, 1947, and launched enemy attacks that
snowballed into a full-out war with seven Arab countries whose armies
invaded the nascent Jewish state. What did they want? "Justice," or, in
other words, to wipe out the Jewish state and eradicate its residents.
Six thousand of our best sons and daughters were killed in that war.
As a result of that
crime, King Abdullah of Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria. He and his
son Hussein began parceling out the land according to political and
personal interests and registering it to their followers in the
Jordanian land registry. The Jordanian government, which governed the
area illegally for 19 years, distributed land that didn't belong to it.
Most of the onslaught
of petitions by "human rights" groups (which means "human rights for
everyone, just not for the Jews to settle their homeland") rests on
those registries. Israel accepted that narrative, and so did Israeli
courts. Based on this lie, the Left talks about "theft" and "Naboth's
vineyard" and other claims that share the local Arabs' false narrative.
This is the primal sin in which Amona and other settlements are caught
up.
Even after accepting
the narrative of lies, the petitioners could not prove "ownership" of
any specific place (although in a few cases it was established in a
general sense). The court did not insist that they do so, because the
state immediately admitted that the construction was illegal or against
the rules or went into other legal squirming that addressed the
situation of land ownership as if it dated from the Jordanian
occupation. Amona was just rocky ground before the hilltop pioneers
moved to it, and not only Amona -- there was barely any Arab agriculture
in the surrounding area.
The "land owners"
received a boon from this no man's land: The settlers and the Israeli
government were prepared to compensate them for more than the land was
worth. But even if they wanted the money, their personal wishes were not
considered; they are just a tool in the Arabs' long fight against the
Jews' return to Zion. Some of our own have joined that fight. To our
disgrace, our own people have decided to make war on Zionism.
This coming summer will
mark the 120th anniversary of the First Zionist Congress in Basel. If
not for the memory of Samaria, if not for the longing for Hebron, and if
we had not kept Jerusalem in our thoughts at every celebration for
1,900 years since the destruction of the Second Temple, Theodor Herzl's
vision would not have echoed with anybody, because there is no Zionism
without Zion, and Zion is first and foremost those ancient segments of
the country.
The battle over Amona
is the tip of the iceberg in the battle for the country as a whole. At
its core, the battle is about the question of our destiny, about which
people returned to Zion, their identity, and around what ethos their
renewed nationality is being formed. Back in the 19th century, when the
pendulum of history began to swing back from exile to redemption and
Jews started to trickle back to their historic homeland, the question of
our loyalty to the land that had waited for us quietly and refused to
give her goodness to any other people was put to the test. The pioneers
in all the waves of aliyah struggled against great difficulties, at the
root of which lay the question of whether they would hold on to the land
of their forefathers in spite of everything. The ground-breaking
settlement showed the peoples of the region that Jews also know how to
hold on fast to their land.
The insistence of the
Amona pioneers on staying on the hill fills us with hope that the
Zionist revolution is not dead. Going all the way while maintaining a
dialogue with the government, and the compromise it led to, demonstrates
maturity.
As the old elite
atrophies, a new elite is being built. The ultimate test of every elite
lies in the realization that it can no longer operate with the mentality
of a persecuted minority that is always on the defense. Dear pioneers,
in times like these no one can take your place as you carry the
stretcher.
Dror Eydar
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=17921
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