The People demand Eretz Israel!
Despite the late hour, hundreds of people attended the Women in Green
yearly walk around the walls.
After a beautiful and moving Eicha reading by David and Bentsie Matar
at the Independence Park across from the American consulate, the crowd
listened to the different speakers: Rabbi Mordechai Rabinovitch, MK
Professor Arieh Eldad, MK Dr Michael Ben Ari, Lehi fighter Ezra Yachin
and historian Arieh Yitzhaki- all emphasizing our loyalty to the Land
of Israel and a united Jerusalem.
Before leaving for the walk, the crowd called "Free Pollard Now" for
Jonathan Pollards release. At the Lion's Gate the crowd stopped and
listened to Rabbi Yossef Mendelevitch's special prayer for the release
and complete recovery of Jonathan Pollard. Rabbi Mendelevitch also
said kaddish for the many Jews who died at that very spot, whether
during the second Temple period fighting the Romans or in 1967 when
our paratroopers entered through that gate to liberate the Old City.
When the walk passed the Damascus Gate, with Jews carrying hundreds of
Israeli flags, while thousands of Arabs were celebrating their
Ramadan, everybody understood how important it was that Women in Green
leaders had insisted on keeping that original route and had not caved
in to the police's demand to change the route.
Among the participants in the walk were many English and French
speaking olim who came from all over the country to be part in this
special event. The walk ended by the Dung Gate and people went to the
Kotel to pray, with the fervent hope that by next year, Moshiach will
come and we will be able to go up to the Temple Mount and witness the
building of the Third Temple.
Below please find a translation of Nadia Matar's speech at the walk.
For Gemma Blech's pictures of the Eicha reading and the walk please click on
https://picasaweb.google.com/
With love for Israel,
Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
The People Demand Eretz Israel by Nadia Matar
Eretz Israel is the man topic in our generation. In each generation
there is another prime topic. Our enemies help us in focusing on that
issue. Once it was Torah study and the observance of the commandments.
Jews who studied Torah were persecuted. Circumcision was performed
clandestinely. Today, it is possible to study Torah, it is possible to
observe kashrut, and it is possible to conduct circumcisions. But if
you put two Jews in a caravan (mobile housing unit) or a hut on some
hill in Judea and Samaria, the entire world will jump up and denounce
and shout "Gevalt!"
The real struggle today is therefore, first and foremost, over Eretz
Israel - the national home. Actually, we can say that a successful
struggle for the national home will solve all the *real* problems
concerning the private home of each Israeli citizen. With all due
respect, the tent protest did not begin on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel
Aviv, but on the hills of Judea and Samaria, when our wonderful youth
understood that we must correct the sin of the spies, that we must
guard Eretz Israel, build it, and settle it, and established me'ahazim
(outpost settlements) with tents and huts, and this Zionist activity
showed the way for the leadership and for all of us the solution to
the problems of our country: the settlement of Eretz Israel!
If we had fair, and not extreme leftist, media, that wants to remove
the subject of Eretz Israel from the stage before September, and is
interested solely in covering and aggrandizing events organized mainly
by anarchists, Communists, and anti-Israeli activists whose sole goal
is to bring down the government and establish a Palestinian state in
the heart of the land - the entire people of Israel would have heard
about the tremendous conference that we held three weeks ago in
Hebron, with the participation of hundreds of people from throughout
Israel, in which the explicit call went forth for the application of
Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. MKs Tsipi Hotovely and Aryeh
Eldad, Caroline Glick, Yoram Ettinger, Prof. Rafi Yisraeli, Eren
Bar-Tal, Dr. Gabi Avital, and Dr. Yitzhak Klein all explained how the
application of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria is the only option.
The application of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria will solve our
country's political, social, and economic problems.
Unlike those who have been demonstrating in the past few weeks in Tel
Aviv, we don't have the millions of dollars of the New Israel Fund to
organize grandiose productions every day and to receive free media
coverage - but we have the faith in the rightness of our way,
determination, and mainly, the wonderful youth, who is so devoted to
the people and the land, the same youth that is our future.
This evening, when we weep for the destruction of the Temple, the
First and Second Temples, the destruction of the Yamit district, and
the destruction of Gush Katif, we have come, for 17 years in a row, to
encircle the walls of the city, like a bride encircling her bridegroom
under the wedding canopy, to say the simplest thing: united Jerusalem
is our capital, for all eternity. The Temple Mount is our heart, and
we long for the building of the Third Temple there. Eretz Israel
belongs to the people of Israel. Come, let's build everywhere in it,
let's establish new settlements in Judea and Samaria, in the Galilee
and in the Negev, let's bring another million Jews here, and you will
see how Israel will flourish.
In the words of Rabbi Yehudah Alkalai:
Great is the day when Israel shall gather to make settlements, to work
the land, to plow and sow, to build, and to plant [...] to bring
healing and cure for all our ills and for all our pains. We have no
other remedy than to settle our holy land. Working the soil is the
land's consolation, the land's redemption.
Since the expulsion from Gush Katif, our movement, Women for Israel's
Tomorrow-Women in Green, has been engaged in the redemption of the
land of Eretz Israel. Together with Yehudit Katsover, my dear friend
and partner, an indefatigable fighter for Eretz Israel for more than
forty years - and together with you, dear members and supporters,
supportive public figures, and dear family members - for these six
years we have been concentrating on the struggle for Eretz Israel,
actually on the ground, on the hills of Judea. The successful struggle
to open the Zatara route, the successful struggle to return the IDF to
the Shdema camp and Adurayim, and the struggle over state lands on the
hills of Netzer in Gush Etzion. This is a stubborn struggle in which,
with your support, we planted, and continue to plant, hundreds of
trees in places on which the Arabs have their eyes. Thanks to the
plantings, we prevent the Arabs from taking over these lands.
Every day the Arabs, who are well financed by the European Union, are
taking control of the lands of Eretz Israel, day and night. They
build, undisturbed, in Areas A, B, and C, and their goal is clear: to
choke the Jewish settlement, to remove it, and to establish in its
place a Palestinian state whose sole aim is the elimination of the
little State of Israel.
Our movement's struggle is local in the Netzer area. There is an
urgent need to intensify and expand this struggle all over, in order
to guard every place in Judea and Samaria for future generations.
Looking toward September, that is fast approaching, in which our
enemies will wage a frontal attack on Eretz Israel, we must respond
with by going on the offensive. We must declare, already today, that
Eretz Israel belongs to the people of Israel; to make it clear in
every way possible that we will devotedly defend our land, like a
lioness defends her cubs. Restraining orders or High Court of Justice
rulings will be of no avail. To the contrary, this will only increase
our wonderful youth's determination to struggle for the land.
In the words of Rabbi Shmuel Mohliver:
The settlement of the land, that is: to buy land and to build houses,
to plant orchards, and to sow fields - is one of the greatest
commandments of our Torah, and some of our early sages say that this
is equivalent to the entire Torah. For every true lover of the cities
of Zion and Jerusalem, thought is not enough, rather, he will do and
act, with his body and his money, and then G-d will grant success to
all our undertakings, the ruined and desolate land will become the
garden of the L-rd, and the despised and lowly city will be honored
and magnificent.
Amen, may it be His will.
==============================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
mailto:wfit2@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org
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