The Moral Obligation to support Jewish Sovereignty in Judea and Samaria
By DOVID BEN-MEIR
I saw an absurd claim that Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria is immoral. Someone should write the obvious that nothing is more morally good than Israeli sovereignty over the ancient and modern homeland of the Jewish nation. Until someone himself comes along I'll write, acting as anyone.Part One: A Wave of Moral ClarityTo know if Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel is morally good, whether in Tel Aviv or Ariel, we must know what is right and true.This land has truly and rightly been claimed as the national homeland by only one people throughout thousands of years of history: the Jewish people, the people of Israel, Am Yisrael. Others have lived here as individuals, families or tribes, but only the Jewish nation always defined this land as their national home, intrinsically and intricately interwoven with their national and religious identity.I was born in Chicago because of a series of historical tragedies, starting with the illegal occupation of our land by European imperialists, the Romans, who eventually destroyed our Holy City of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) and our Holy Temple. Their harsh regime in the following centuries forced many of us to seek a life in exile. Throughout history we Jews lived in the Holy Land, even as policies of European and later various Islamic imperialists made us a minority in our own homeland.Despite being scattered in exile – our religion, values, customs, beliefs, basic texts, laws, written language, common past and a yearning for a common future clarified that we were one people. We were the same people who had come with Joshua, who gave the world the vision of universal peace and beating swords into ploughshares, who had built the first and second Temples in Jerusalem, who took the Bible, our religion, world-outlook and our laws for life with us wherever we went during the exile. Though scattered we always knew we were one people who had only one real homeland. Born in Holland, Yemen, Poland, Morocco, India or Ethiopia, we knew: the Holy Land of Israel is home, the Holy City of Yerushalayim our capital. Our religion, laws, customs and world-outlook reflected the centrality of the Land of Israel to Judaism. We prayed facing the Holy Land, mentioned her and Jerusalem in three-times-daily prayers, grace after meals, in every holiday and every weekday, in joyous occasions like weddings and births, as well as having special days of mourning to remember the Holy Land and Holy City. We even left a portion of the wall opposite the entrance to our homes without paint, a reminder of the Roman destruction of Yerushalayim. No others had anything comparable to our living and yearning connection with this land, over thousands of years.Therefore it's a moral obligation for the world to seek justice through restitution of the land to its rightful owners and the restitution of the people to their rightful place.We started returning home to our land about two hundred years ago, long before the formal Zionist movement. Jews – whether disciples of the Gaon Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna, followers of Hasidism, from Yemen, or from Morocco and various places – had begun to return to the land. All had the same basic goal: to re-establish the Jewish people in their land – to revive the country through buying land, reclaiming it from desolation, rejuvenating agriculture, creating industry, building houses and towns.After the moral crises of the "Great War", an air of morality, justice and respect for human dignity wafted through Europe and the world. The justice and morality of righting an ancient and on-going wrong by returning the land to the Jews was internationally recognized The League of Nations established a mandate over the Holy Land, in order to reconstitute the Jewish national homeland. Afterwards Europeans and their Arab allies, for their own selfish reasons, did much to hinder us. The climax was the Holocaust, executed by Germany while most of the world did nothing. In spite of all that, not because of it, we Jews continued on our way and regained our independence in our homeland.Nothing is more just and morally good than that!