Author: David Mark

David Mark is the founder and editor of Israel Rising. Besides Israel Rising, he heads up outreach for Ateret Cohanim in Jerusalem's Old City and acts as the Managing Director for Pulse of Israel. On the side he teaches classes that blend minimalism, mindfulness, and ecology with the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.
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Why Have Israelis Dropped the Two State Solution?

A recent Democracy Institute poll shows support for annexation of Judea and Samaria equal to its opposition. Given the fact that Israelis have endured over 20 years of Oslo education, the poll seems to be indicative of changing attitudes towards Judea and Samaria.

If this poll is accurate, the question arises: What caused the Israeli public to change of course?

Gaza a Turning Point

The destruction and uprooting of Jewish communities in Gaza was hailed at the time as the best chance for peace.  Israelis trusted Ariel Sharon and even believed the security guarantees offered by the Bush administration. Over the following 10 years Israelis’ basic assumptions about the world have been proven false. Assumptions include the following:

  • Arabs are interested in stability
  • Secularism will win out
  • America can always be trusted
  • Giving up land will bring peace
  • Security experts know what they are talking about

Given the above list, Israelis see no reason to give up on Judea and Samaria.  More and more these territories are seen as an integral part of the Jewish nation. However, despite the positive change in attitude towards annexation, other results from the poll should caution those in the Land of Israel camp.

For example, 61% of the Israeli public disagrees with maintaining the status-quo.  This result can be seen as a positive affirmation that Israelis want to push some sort of solution forward.  The question for those in the National Camp, is whose solution?

Those on the Right should take the opportunity to push forward a clear plan of action in reference to annexation. The goal should be to win the support of the slight majority willing to undergo some sort of geopolitical change.  If not, amnesia of past events will eventually take over again and endanger Israel.

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The Right needs to educate the country on Israel’s historical rights to all of the Land of Israel and what has been given up over the years.  The current culture in Israel and the geopolitical instability throughout the Middle East affords the country an opportunity to reverse some of the territorial setbacks that have occurred in the past.

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For Gush Katif, a Memorial is all that Stands

It has been over ten years since the destruction and erasure of Gush Katif. Many of the families have moved on after years of homelessness.  Families have broken apart.  Kids have grown up with a distaste for the state. This should not be a surprise, after all their childhood was ruined by the very state sworn to protect them.

Ten years later and the government has finally given the people of Gush Katif something in return for their misery. Today a memorial statue has been placed in the Eastern entrance to the Knesset.

“It is only fitting that the Knesset, which decided [to evacuate the Gush Katif communities], will remember, and remind those who visit it of the communities of Gush Katif and northern Samaria – the [building of settlements], the agriculture and the settlers themselves. I hope this work of art will generate interest among the visitors of the Knesset,” Yuli Edelstein, the Speaker of the Knesset said at an unveiling today for the memorial statue.

Gush Katif is but a memory.  The pioneers and young families will be a few sentences in the history books.  Kids will be taught that there was a time when the State’s leaders were really the warriors of old. However, as these leaders grew older they turned their backs on the very ideology and land that nurtured their development.

When the slogan Never Again was made about the Holocaust, the point is not about not letting another Holocaust take place.  This is obvious.  The means to prevent a repeat of history is to say Never Again to being an exile minded Jew. Israel is meant to be more than memorial statues.  It is meant to be an engine that builds our redemption.

No one lost their lives or sacrificed to settle barren dunes to be rewarded a memorial statue. That is what a nation who wants to sacrifice its future on the alter of world acceptance does. Israel is not about abandoning the past. It is about tying our covenant and the Land that was given to us by the Almighty together in order to give a full expression to our prophetic charge of being a light unto the nations.

One day the memorial statue will be taken down.  Not because we don’t want to remember, but because one day the people of Gush Katif will return and liberate their stolen land.  They will no longer be a mere memory for the youth, but once again Gush Katif will exist in the present.  The Land of Israel nurtures its children. We in turn must be strong enough in faith to see our part of the covenant through.

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Here Come the French

The French always know how to make noise for themselves.  The world is engulfed in multiple proxy wars, radical Islam is spreading, and migrants threaten to destabilize Europe, but never mind all that. The French remain obsessed on finding a “solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The French originally floated a proposal after Bibi Netanyahu won in the last elections.  This proposal would essentially force the contours of a solution on the two sides if they did not come to an agreement themselves. In recent days conversation has bubbled up that the French are once again ready to table this proposal. In response Prime Minister Netanyahu stated:

“You certainly heard of the proposal being raised in certain quarters in France, to convene an international conference with the threat at the end that if it is unsuccessful, then France will – to a large degree – adopt the Palestinian position. This will be an incentive for the Palestinians to come and not compromise. The substance of negotiations is compromise and the French initiative, as it has been reported, in effect gives the Palestinians in advance reasons not to do so.”

The French, like the other Western nations believe that the Israel-Palestinian conflict is similar to a border dispute in Western Europe. There is no similarity between the two. When Jewish freedom fighters struggled to defeat the British Empire, paving the way for Jewish sovereignty to be reinstated in the Land of Israel, they were not struggling over a border dispute. The fact is, as long the ruling Israeli political class keeps flirting with negotiations with the PA, the World will keep on insisting on dividing the Land.

Israel is indivisible.  Jewish fighters against Britain or any other occupying power that controls a piece of the Jewish homeland, are no different than the Jewish fighters that attempted to push out Rome. The only way the Jewish people will remove the growing international pressure is to insist on rectifying the national injustice that Rome perpetrated against the Jewish people nearly 2000 years ago. To do this, the world must accept that the entire Land of Israel belongs only to the Nation of Israel.

 

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[Video] Rowdy Arab Youth in the Heart of the Old Yemenite Village

Daniel Luria of Ateret Cohanim encounters a bunch of rowdy Arab youth towards the end of a day of filming in the historically Jewish neighborhood of the Yemenite Village in Jerusalem. Since its decimation in 1936-37 it has been taken over by Arabs and renamed Silwan. Now more than 17 Jewish families have moved back. The old Synagogue has been brought back into Jewish hands as well.