Sunday, October 23, 2005
10/23/2005 09:05:00 PM | 
Posted by
JoeSettler
The Settler extended family was wandering around Hebron this past Friday.
Unfortunately to our dismay, Maarat HaMachpela, the resting place of our ancestors was closed to Jews!!!
Quite incomprehensible, though no less inconceivable than the fact that Jews may not go up to pray at our holiest site either (and no, it’s not the Kotel).
We picked up a pair of America tourists also wandering around Hebron with no transportation and drove them back to Jerusalem before Shabbat.
We stopped off and showed them “Har Homa” on the way.
They were surprised that this was the neighborhood that had caused all the controversy. They asked us a few times if we’re sure we’re talking about the same place.
Back home Mrs. Settler raised the idea again that the settlers need to run a “birthright yesh(a)!”.
Jews need to see and understand what it is these “settlements” really are.
This couple is going back to America with a new understanding. We did nothing more than drive them through a supposedly controversial neighborhood.
No amount of media bias and Arab propaganda will ever be able to distort the reality they saw with their own eyes.
Unfortunately to our dismay, Maarat HaMachpela, the resting place of our ancestors was closed to Jews!!!
Quite incomprehensible, though no less inconceivable than the fact that Jews may not go up to pray at our holiest site either (and no, it’s not the Kotel).
We picked up a pair of America tourists also wandering around Hebron with no transportation and drove them back to Jerusalem before Shabbat.
We stopped off and showed them “Har Homa” on the way.
They were surprised that this was the neighborhood that had caused all the controversy. They asked us a few times if we’re sure we’re talking about the same place.
Back home Mrs. Settler raised the idea again that the settlers need to run a “birthright yesh(a)!”.
Jews need to see and understand what it is these “settlements” really are.
This couple is going back to America with a new understanding. We did nothing more than drive them through a supposedly controversial neighborhood.
No amount of media bias and Arab propaganda will ever be able to distort the reality they saw with their own eyes.
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11 comments:
Fascists! Did you show them the apartheid roads, eh???
You drive on luxury super-highways with tunnels and bridges, while the poor Arabs manage with second rate donkey service.
Moadim L'Simcha to you to, buddy.
Joe, I have a friend who has given the idea some serious thought (birthright yesha). If you're serious about it, maybe we all should talk....
Jameel is the person to talk with to set it up.
He knows everyone.
His only problem is that he is too busy doing so many things.
i agree.
i'm an american who was in israel for a few months a couple of years back. i spent a shabbos in a yishuv with a friend who had just made aliyah and was pretty left wing, by the time shabbos was over and he saw what's really going on, without any of the media bias, well let's just say his leftist views were practically gone.
joe'
great idea.Drop a line to the Yesha people?
I bumped into Ketzele last night, and Benny Elon last week, and forgot to mention it each time.
The YESHA people are not the solution. Grassroots YESHA and matot arim (Susie Dym) are much more effective. (And not as threatening that you're going to schnor)
The Yesh council needs to connect with the hilonim in Israel and accept the painful reality that the settlement enterprise has largely failed in its objectives. We will not be able to stay in all the places that we are in now.
We can't keep 3 million Palestinians in the Judea and Shomron without any rights. If we make them citizens of the state if Israel then the Zionist project has failed. If we maintain the status quo then Zionism has also failed because we will have lost our humanity.
Yes this is our land but we also share it with another nation. Let us divide it between us, we Jews will end up with approximately 80% of our land the Palestinians will have only 20% of theirs.
Does that not sound like a good deal to you?
To philosophystephen:
I'm sure it's a wonderful deal if you want to be a Secular Leftist.
For the those of us living in Eretz Yirael and not just Medinat Yisrael there are other alternatives that don't require us to give up our rights and claim to all of Eretz Yisrael.
Has the Settler enterprise failing in its objective?
Perhaps only in that we left our rear flank open to the offensives of the leftwing defeatist ideologies, resulting in that people like you, supposedly a settler, has apparently integrated their defeatist attitudes into your philosophy instead of fighting for the values of the Torah.
To PseudoPhilsopher:
1. How has the settlement enterprise failed? Despite your best efforts, we have built wonderful, vibrant and healthy Jewish communities in the heartland of Eretz Yisrael. We've doubled in size since Rabin and Oslo started!
2. Zionism will have lost its humanity? We've offered the Arabs many different solutions, and they don't seem interested in any of them. Since my security is more important than your humanity, I'm not overly concerned by your liberalism.
You're not a Zionist - dirty or otherwise.
PhilosophyStephen,
The pointsy ou raise have been stated time and again, but they have alomost nothing to do wit hthe issue at hand - namely the concept of birthright Yesha.
You mention that the Yesha Council (but I imagine that you mean the religious Zionist - Pro-Eretz Yisrael community) needs to connect with the "hilonim".
That's what this program is all about.
This is a program that should be supported by Jews, both left and right, religious and secular.
Even if you believe that Israel may need to expel the Jews from trhese areas, does that mean that these places would then no longer belong to the Jewish People?
Would Hebron, beit El, Shiloh... all cease to exist from Jewish consciousness?
The right of the Jewish People to have a Jewish State in the Land of Israel, the connection of the Jewish People to its heritage and forefathers isn't found in tel Aviv, but in Yehudah and Shomron.
As such, anyone who cares about strengthing Jewish pride and identity should be in favor of a trip that is able to connect Jews from all over the world wit htheir roots and heritage.
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