Lt.-Col. (res.) Danny Baz, a secular Israel Air Force pilot from Herzliya, says the Jewish pioneers of Judea and Samaria are Israel’s strategic weapon.

In an open letter published in several sources in recent weeks, Baz writes, “Most of us do not have the tools to understand the greatness of the strategic and historic contribution of the settlers; if we are still here in a few hundred years, our descendants will be able to chalk this up to the settlers’ credit.”

Excerpts from the letter:

Many years ago, I flew low over Judea and Samaria, and a strange sensation filled my body. A totally secular Jew, a lover of Israel – I thought I saw angels… Later on, I realized that what I had seen was angels and the sons of angels who were sent, by holy destiny, to save the land of our forefathers from gentiles and from the lost souls of our own nation.

I did not see the angel Gabriel, nor Michael or Raziel. I saw angels who are even more important to Israel: the settlers!

Don’t raise your eyebrows, don’t make a face, and don’t worry about my mental health… All I ask is that you open your eyes and peel your ears, and perhaps you too will understand that in light of the dangers that face us, these are not regular angels… These are people who are there so that in the future, we will be able to say with pride, ‘These are our borders, this is our land, we have guarded over the inheritance of our forefathers.’

The settlers are a very important part of the State of Israel’s array of deterrence, and their value is no less than our nuclear arsenal (according to foreign sources, of course).

The settlers carry on their shoulders a historic task, one that can be compared to the beginning of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel in the times of Joshua bin Nun – a heroic period in which those first settlers carved out the image of the Land of Israel. This is precisely what is happening now in Judea and Samaria. The Divinely-sent settlers are the ones who will end up determining the future border of the Land of Israel.

The settlers are the true Zionism. This is the religious Zionism that some of us in the secular world love to hate and see as the root of all our troubles with the anti-Zionist Western nations. Religious Zionism has some amazing people, fighters and men of spirit that only a nation like Israel is worthy of being blessed with.

Only history will judge how very important was their tremendous contribution to the Nation of Israel.

With the blessing of Am Yisrael Chai (The People of Israel Live),

Danny Baz, Lt.-Col. (res.)