The World Will Protect Us
The World Will Protect Us

The Yesha Council has run what many see as a successful campaign to remind the public of the promises of the Prime Minister and government ministers to end the building freeze. The campaign is aimed at embarrassing the government into keeping its promise. But if the nationalist leaders don’t address the deeper issue it may not be enough.

With the nuclear threat by Iran looming bigger by the day, the public can already begin to discern the pretext the Prime Minister will

In every decade a different excuse is given for surrendering the Israeli heartland.

give to continue sanctions on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria and even, G-d forbid, surrender Jewish land. "Yes I promised to end the freeze, yes its unfair and maybe even racist, but I have no choice, we need American support for an attack on Iran or we will become the target of nuclear weapons" is how it goes. Against this existential argument many are prepared to cave in.

Evidence of this line of reasoning can be found in many places. The far-left Haaretz journalist Akiva Eldar wrote on September 07, 2010, “Netanyahu, make peace with the PA to protect Israel from Iran.” Meanwhile leftwing groups are promoting the slogan "Bushehr for Yitzhar” – that is Bushehr (the site of Iran's nuclear reactor) for Yitzhar (the Jewish town in central Samaria).

President Shimon Peres recently said that the real conflict in the Middle East was not between Israel and the PA, but between Iran and the Arab world. Peres said Iran wanted to become a regional power and  has become very aggressive. Therefore, said Peres, Prime Minister Netanyahu was right at the summit in Washington to make concessions to the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria.

It seems that in every decade a different excuse is given for surrendering the Israeli heartland. In the 80s it was: This is an occupation of foreign land and immoral. When this failed to convince the public, in the 1990’s it became: If we surrender land we will get peace. After the Oslo terror wave, when this line of reasoning was revealed as preposterous, it became a nationalist argument in the 2000s: The demographic threat forces us to give up Judea and Samaria. After this claim was also debunked due to plummeting Arab birthrates and rising Jewish ones and the revelation as to the real number of Arabs in Yesha, a new seemingly waterproof argument has been proposed for 2010: We must surrender land in order for the Americans to agree to save us from Iran.

The answer to this claim is twofold. First, the State of Israel was founded because the Jewish people decided that it could no longer rely on the gentiles to protect them. Unfortunately the State was founded only after the Holocaust, but Israel’s first leaders all came here long before. The Jewish State was proof that the Jewish people were going to take responsibility for their own destiny and no longer rely on others.

Secondly, the surrender of Jewish land ultimately weakens us vis a the Iranians. The strongest argument we have against the Iranian claim that we are imposters in the region is our moral right to our land. When we hold onto our land we show the Iranians we are natives here and it is they who are encroaching. While this does not change the physical balance of power, it does provide the inner reasoning without which no battle can be fought – just cause. It is the justness of the cause which is ultimately our strongest weapon.

We should remember that Islam is ultimately a daughter religion of Judaism. When they see us doubtful of our identity, they say we are imposters in the region and attack. When the Iranians see us acting like proud Jews they recognize us as their older brothers and might even consider a stop to  fighting us.