The founding session of the new group - named Meginei Eretz, Defenders of the Land - was held in Beit El Monday night, led by Atty. Elyakim HaEtzni of Kiryat Arba, Lt.-Col. (ret.) Yitzik Shadmi of Halamish, and others. Close to 100 people from all over Yesha (Judea and Samaria) were in attendance, including young outpost leaders as well as Dr. Gideon Ehrlich of Bar Ilan University, Kedumim Deputy Mayor Esther Karish, Nadia Matar of Women in Green, Beit El Mayor Moshe Rosenbaum, Rabbi Avraham Shreiber of the former Gush Katif community Kfar Darom.
"No one is happy about starting new organizations," said HaEtzni [pictured, left, with Moshe Leshem], "but this one comes to meet a critical need for our very existence. The Yesha Council [of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria] has done wonderful things, and its leaders have dedicated their lives to Yesha, but they have left the settlement enterprise open and vulnerable at a critically dangerous point that endangers our very existence. By announcing in advance that they accept the 'majority decision,' even if that decision is to do to us what they did to Gush Katif, they have neutralized our ability to defend ourselves."
Lt.-Col. Shadmi elaborated on this point:
"We refuse to adopt this defeatist policy. If they come to expel us, we will not attack soldiers or police, but neither will we go quietly. They will have to use a lot of force against us, and we will be willing to go to jail... Soldiers must be willing to say openly, on the day they enlist, that they want to serve their country in the best way possible but they will refuse any orders having to do with expelling Jews. If 2,000 soldiers say that, it will cause a change in the whole country."
Former Knesset Member HaEtzni continued:
"We want to help the Prime Minister tell the U.S. President, 'I would like to evacuate the communities and/or outposts, but I just can't; the army won't cooperate, and the people won't go peacefully, and there are just too many people who say they believe in the Bible.
"The plan to remove Jews from Judea and Samaria is a four-fold crime. It is a crime against the Jewish religion, a crime against the concept of Jewish settlement of the Land of Israel, a crime against the State of Israel, in that it endangers the entire country, and a crime against humanity - as ethnic cleansing is generally considered.
"The absurdity is that the Yesha Council itself threatens that if a compromise is not agreed upon, the case of Amona [where hundreds of youths protesting the destruction of nine Jewish houses were injured by police violence] will repeat itself... Our new organization is coming to fill the void that was created by the Yesha Council's hanging everything on the narrow shoulders of the girls in Amona."
The Meginei Eretz plan is to recruit residents from all over Yesha, have them form task forces in each of their communities, and "organize those who believe that in this war it is permissible to block roads, to resist, to tell soldiers to refuse, and to employ civil disobedience." HaEtzni dismissed as "demagoguery" talk of the army shooting at civilians or vice-versa.
Successful Activism
Various speakers provided examples of resolute action by Yesha residents that brought positive results. Matanya Ben-Gedalyah of Beit Haggai said that just recently,
"Arabs in the area declared war on us by vandalizing the memorial monument to our friend and neighbor Yossi Shok, who was murdered last year by terrorists. I say they 'declared war' because this is how it starts, with attacks on property...
"We informed the army that we were going to hold a large march towards the monument, and from there to the neighboring Arab village. The army of course came out in force to 'keep the peace,' but what they didn't know was that another, smaller group of us went around the back way and stood right at the entrance to the Arab village - just singing songs of the Land of Israel and reminding every Arab who passed by that 'we are here.' The message was received..."
Another story that was recounted involved Ronen Tzafrir of the Galilee, who came with several of his friends to stand up against left-wingers and Arabs who accused Shomron Jews of cutting down Arab olive trees. Tzafrir later told Arutz-7,
"It turned out that in the car of one of the leading trouble-makers there, Yoel Marshak of the Kibbutz movement, I found a large saw - of the type used to cut down olive trees! It was clear that they were simply making a blood libel against the Jews there... We surrounded his car - he didn't know what hit him - and I took the saw, and then the army officially confiscated it... The problem is that they later returned it to him and detained me - but in the end, they forbade him to return to the area..."
Finally, Col. (ret.) Moshe Leshem of Givon HaHadashah, just north of Jerusalem, recounted the following:
"Six years ago, Arab terrorists shot at a car in which my son was traveling - miraculously, only one passenger was hurt, but it could have been very much worse. That very night, we went to the nearby [hostile - ed.] village of Bidu, and said, 'No more Arab cars will drive past our community,' and we demanded that the road be closed. We refused to budge until finally the army came and almost pleaded with us, saying they couldn't bring the bulldozer to close off the Arab village until the next morning. We said fine, we'll remain here until tomorrow morning. In the end, they closed it off, and has not been opened in six years..."
Strength from Within
“Our own communities in Judea and Samaria are an asset that we have overlooked,” Leshem said. “We must each go back to our communities and widen the circle of activists, simply by starting discussion groups – people are worried about the future, they want to talk about the current situation. From there, the circle will widen, and people committed to self-sacrifice on behalf of the movement will come forward... Don't look to the coastal plane and Tel Aviv for salvation – believe in yourselves. We must instill our communities with ideology.”
Leshem later told IsraelNationalRadio's Yishai Fleisher, "The main mission of this group will be to organize people in their communities on an ideological basis - parlor meetings in homes, and then larger groups. Many of the people have not yet recovered from the expulsion of Gush Katif, and so we hope to create a new flame within them, a hope that things may change... Including those in Jerusalem and the Golan, we have more than a half-million people, and they are the cream of the crop - the most idealistic, the real pioneers, the best soldiers and officers - and they can set the national agenda, just as the Kibbutz movement did in the early days of the State. The problem is that they don't yet know who they are, or the great power they have, and that's what we want to change."
Among the many points made by Journalist Boaz HaEtzni of Kiryat Arba, the MC of the evening, was this:
"Nashuv l'chol Yishuv - We Will Return to Every [Destroyed] Community - is not just a bumper sticker to decorate our cars, but truly represents the way that we want to lead. The story is not over, and we in fact expect to return to the destroyed communities, and everyone must be aware of that. Especially in the northern Shomron, where Israel is still in control - the area is still Area C, that is, under full Israeli control, and we must have active committees engaged in planning how to return to there."
Arutz-7's Ezra HaLevi reports:
MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union-NRP), the only Knesset Member to attend the meeting, said that the destruction of outposts could come at any time. “[Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor] Lieberman’s entry to the government is liable to bring about an attack on the outposts as part of the internal government power struggles,” Eldad warned. “Peretz will seek to prove to his constituency that he still has control over the IDF, despite Lieberman’s demands that the outposts be authorized.”
Eldad also took the opportunity to reiterate his public stance on refusal and civil disobedience, daring Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to prosecute him for it. “I am publicly calling for refusal of orders [having to do with destroying Jewish sovereignty in parts of Judea and Samaria] and for massive civil disobedience to such orders on behalf of the populace,” Eldad said. “Now I have said the same thing that people like Bayit Leumi [National Home] activists Shai Malka and Ariel Vangrover are being tried for – let the Attorney General put me on trial.”
Former Gush Katif spokesman Eran Sternberg, who is against enlisting in the army and feels that the army cannot be changed from within, spoke about his mixed feelings for the Yesha Council. Decrying the Council's willingness to come to peaceful defeatist agreements in Kfar Maimon [on the eve of a bid by thousands to "crash the gates" of Gush Katif shortly before the Disengagement] and Amona, he said that later, the Council held a rally in support of the youth in Amona.
"No one is happy about starting new organizations," said HaEtzni [pictured, left, with Moshe Leshem], "but this one comes to meet a critical need for our very existence. The Yesha Council [of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria] has done wonderful things, and its leaders have dedicated their lives to Yesha, but they have left the settlement enterprise open and vulnerable at a critically dangerous point that endangers our very existence. By announcing in advance that they accept the 'majority decision,' even if that decision is to do to us what they did to Gush Katif, they have neutralized our ability to defend ourselves."
Lt.-Col. Shadmi elaborated on this point:
"We refuse to adopt this defeatist policy. If they come to expel us, we will not attack soldiers or police, but neither will we go quietly. They will have to use a lot of force against us, and we will be willing to go to jail... Soldiers must be willing to say openly, on the day they enlist, that they want to serve their country in the best way possible but they will refuse any orders having to do with expelling Jews. If 2,000 soldiers say that, it will cause a change in the whole country."
Former Knesset Member HaEtzni continued:
"We want to help the Prime Minister tell the U.S. President, 'I would like to evacuate the communities and/or outposts, but I just can't; the army won't cooperate, and the people won't go peacefully, and there are just too many people who say they believe in the Bible.
"The plan to remove Jews from Judea and Samaria is a four-fold crime. It is a crime against the Jewish religion, a crime against the concept of Jewish settlement of the Land of Israel, a crime against the State of Israel, in that it endangers the entire country, and a crime against humanity - as ethnic cleansing is generally considered.
"The absurdity is that the Yesha Council itself threatens that if a compromise is not agreed upon, the case of Amona [where hundreds of youths protesting the destruction of nine Jewish houses were injured by police violence] will repeat itself... Our new organization is coming to fill the void that was created by the Yesha Council's hanging everything on the narrow shoulders of the girls in Amona."
The Meginei Eretz plan is to recruit residents from all over Yesha, have them form task forces in each of their communities, and "organize those who believe that in this war it is permissible to block roads, to resist, to tell soldiers to refuse, and to employ civil disobedience." HaEtzni dismissed as "demagoguery" talk of the army shooting at civilians or vice-versa.
Successful Activism
Various speakers provided examples of resolute action by Yesha residents that brought positive results. Matanya Ben-Gedalyah of Beit Haggai said that just recently,
"Arabs in the area declared war on us by vandalizing the memorial monument to our friend and neighbor Yossi Shok, who was murdered last year by terrorists. I say they 'declared war' because this is how it starts, with attacks on property...
"We informed the army that we were going to hold a large march towards the monument, and from there to the neighboring Arab village. The army of course came out in force to 'keep the peace,' but what they didn't know was that another, smaller group of us went around the back way and stood right at the entrance to the Arab village - just singing songs of the Land of Israel and reminding every Arab who passed by that 'we are here.' The message was received..."
Another story that was recounted involved Ronen Tzafrir of the Galilee, who came with several of his friends to stand up against left-wingers and Arabs who accused Shomron Jews of cutting down Arab olive trees. Tzafrir later told Arutz-7,
"It turned out that in the car of one of the leading trouble-makers there, Yoel Marshak of the Kibbutz movement, I found a large saw - of the type used to cut down olive trees! It was clear that they were simply making a blood libel against the Jews there... We surrounded his car - he didn't know what hit him - and I took the saw, and then the army officially confiscated it... The problem is that they later returned it to him and detained me - but in the end, they forbade him to return to the area..."
Finally, Col. (ret.) Moshe Leshem of Givon HaHadashah, just north of Jerusalem, recounted the following:
"Six years ago, Arab terrorists shot at a car in which my son was traveling - miraculously, only one passenger was hurt, but it could have been very much worse. That very night, we went to the nearby [hostile - ed.] village of Bidu, and said, 'No more Arab cars will drive past our community,' and we demanded that the road be closed. We refused to budge until finally the army came and almost pleaded with us, saying they couldn't bring the bulldozer to close off the Arab village until the next morning. We said fine, we'll remain here until tomorrow morning. In the end, they closed it off, and has not been opened in six years..."
Strength from Within
“Our own communities in Judea and Samaria are an asset that we have overlooked,” Leshem said. “We must each go back to our communities and widen the circle of activists, simply by starting discussion groups – people are worried about the future, they want to talk about the current situation. From there, the circle will widen, and people committed to self-sacrifice on behalf of the movement will come forward... Don't look to the coastal plane and Tel Aviv for salvation – believe in yourselves. We must instill our communities with ideology.”
Leshem later told IsraelNationalRadio's Yishai Fleisher, "The main mission of this group will be to organize people in their communities on an ideological basis - parlor meetings in homes, and then larger groups. Many of the people have not yet recovered from the expulsion of Gush Katif, and so we hope to create a new flame within them, a hope that things may change... Including those in Jerusalem and the Golan, we have more than a half-million people, and they are the cream of the crop - the most idealistic, the real pioneers, the best soldiers and officers - and they can set the national agenda, just as the Kibbutz movement did in the early days of the State. The problem is that they don't yet know who they are, or the great power they have, and that's what we want to change."
Among the many points made by Journalist Boaz HaEtzni of Kiryat Arba, the MC of the evening, was this:
"Nashuv l'chol Yishuv - We Will Return to Every [Destroyed] Community - is not just a bumper sticker to decorate our cars, but truly represents the way that we want to lead. The story is not over, and we in fact expect to return to the destroyed communities, and everyone must be aware of that. Especially in the northern Shomron, where Israel is still in control - the area is still Area C, that is, under full Israeli control, and we must have active committees engaged in planning how to return to there."
Arutz-7's Ezra HaLevi reports:
MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union-NRP), the only Knesset Member to attend the meeting, said that the destruction of outposts could come at any time. “[Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor] Lieberman’s entry to the government is liable to bring about an attack on the outposts as part of the internal government power struggles,” Eldad warned. “Peretz will seek to prove to his constituency that he still has control over the IDF, despite Lieberman’s demands that the outposts be authorized.”
Eldad also took the opportunity to reiterate his public stance on refusal and civil disobedience, daring Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to prosecute him for it. “I am publicly calling for refusal of orders [having to do with destroying Jewish sovereignty in parts of Judea and Samaria] and for massive civil disobedience to such orders on behalf of the populace,” Eldad said. “Now I have said the same thing that people like Bayit Leumi [National Home] activists Shai Malka and Ariel Vangrover are being tried for – let the Attorney General put me on trial.”
Former Gush Katif spokesman Eran Sternberg, who is against enlisting in the army and feels that the army cannot be changed from within, spoke about his mixed feelings for the Yesha Council. Decrying the Council's willingness to come to peaceful defeatist agreements in Kfar Maimon [on the eve of a bid by thousands to "crash the gates" of Gush Katif shortly before the Disengagement] and Amona, he said that later, the Council held a rally in support of the youth in Amona.