We are happy to present you with our 17th Sovereignty bulletin, sent to members and supporters of our Sovereignty Movement. You are invited to read, get updated and join:
Shalom to you, dear friends
These days are associated with great pain, 15 years since the uprooting and expulsion from Gush Katif and northern Samaria. Together with those who were uprooted, we are bringing back tearful memories of and thoughts of the tragic (and unclear) series of events that led Israel to that terrible rift of tearing away part of our homeland and delivering it to the enemy.
Along with the public soul-searching, the heavy cost to security that we paid for the terrible deed also arises, of course. We experienced the cost and we are still experiencing it with the extension of range of the missiles from the Gaza Strip deep into the Israeli home front. With our own hands we created an evil country that propagates hatred, incitement and terror towards us.
The immediate lesson that we got as a result of that devastating trauma was a change in the pattern of activity for the national camp. We are no longer satisfied with building communities, paving roads and establishing outposts; we have now center of gravity to the political sphere. We will advance the call to apply Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria step by step, and in this way, we will bring about a true political answer that will thwart any chance of destruction, displacement and expulsion ahead of time. We decided to establish the Sovereignty Movement and we set out on our way. We have not abandoned the path of holding onto the Land, building communities and expansion on the ground - we have built another storey.
Together with you, for about a decade, we have inculcated the idea, drop by drop, conference by conference, a hasbara campaign and then another one, a parlor gathering and another lecture, a meeting and another media exposure, until the idea has become a flowing stream, which now must be channeled and guaranteed that it will indeed lead to the true Zionist goal, sovereignty without ruinous political costs in the form of an alien state in the heart of our Land.
Marching onward
On Tisha b’Av eve, as we have for the past 25 years, we held the 26th annual traditional walk around the walls of Jerusalem. This time, due to Corona restrictions, most of you could not be with us and only fifty people could participate in the walk, as representatives of all the many thousands who very much wanted to be with us but were not permitted to do so.
(gershon elinson)
The walk was broadcast live on the Sovereignty Facebook page and on the Arutz 7 internet site, with the call: sovereignty is the answer to the destruction, and indeed, the many speakers that sent their pre-recorded greeting as well as those who participated in person at the walk, spoke in this very spirit. The People of Israel’s mourning on Tisha b’Av is for the destruction of its sovereignty over its Land and their expulsion into the diaspora. We have the privilege of being among the generation of emerging redemption; the State of Israel is established; agriculture and with it, a connection to the Land of Israel is strengthened, Israeli industry is an example to the world, the Torah and spiritual world is thriving in our Land as never before, the Israeli military is among the elite of the world and the Land of Israel answers us with a smiling face. Together with you, we are marching to the next phase of the Zionist, Jewish journey, the phase of sovereignty.
Among those who sent greetings for the walk were the Mayor of Jerusalem Moshe Leon, Minister Ze’ev Elkin, Minister Miri Regev, Member of Knesset Bezalel Smotrich, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Aryeh King, former Member of Knesset Yehuda Glick, Lehi fighter Ezra Yachin, Rebbetzin Rivka Shimon and Member of Jerusalem Council Yonatan Yosef.
This year we also distributed to each participant in the walk a small box with dust from the Temple Mount. The connection to the Temple Mount is the connection to the beating heart of the Land of Israel and to strengthen this connection we will continue to strive until the Temple is built.
Whoever was not at the walk and would like a memento:
For the coverage of the walk and those who spoke there
For the link to the entire event
For a collection of photos from the walk and the concluding assembly
For me, sovereignty is…
And this time, our guest columnist is Tzipi Hotovely:
“For me, sovereignty is returning to the historic justice of the Return to Zion. To connect with our roots in the Land of Israel and recognize the great miracle that happened to us with the establishment of the state and the Six Day War”.
They sought to curse but blessed instead
In recent days, we have been exposed to a report produced by the Zulat Institute, established by the former head of Meretz, Zehava Gal-On, together with other key Left-wing activists such as Prof. Naomi Hazan, Atty. Michael Sfard and Prof. Yossi Yonah.
The report deals with the concern about our public activities to inculcate the vision of sovereignty within Israeli society and leadership. In the report, though the Sovereignty Movement is not mentioned by name, the time span of ten years that the report relates to indicates that our joint activity is indeed what bothers the leftist radicals very much. “An ongoing change of power”, they call our activities.
Citations from the summary of the report:
“In less than a decade, annexation of the territories has morphed from an unheard of notion held by the delusional fringes of Israeli society into the declared policy of the Israeli government, enjoying the support of the leaders of the Blue and White and Labor parties.”
“Through a lengthy and calculated campaign, the right has succeeded in gift wrapping the annexation of the territories and marketing it to the Israeli public as a legitimate, reasonable, and almost inevitable move.
This report’s focus is the laundering of the discourse, which has played a major role in the process of legitimizing and normalizing the idea of annexation among the Israeli public. It examines the political causes and actors that have been working in recent years to move the notion of annexation from the most extreme and messianic political fringes into the heart of the discourse of the moderate right and even the center-left.”
Throughout the 30 pages of the report, its writers try to alarm the Israeli public about the idea of applying sovereignty and describe it as something that impedes Israel and endangers her. We see this document as proof from the Left of our Sovereignty movement’s great impact on Israeli discourse. Indeed, the idea that about a decade ago no one dealt with and no one spoke of has become the central idea on the political agenda.
Link to Zulat’s report: whitewashing apartheid
Remembering and Moving on
We take this opportunity to thank the City of Jerusalem for the decision to name a street for Rav Benny Elon, obm. Rav Elon was one of the first leaders to understand the need to present an orderly political plan by the nationalist camp. The sovereignty plan that he formulated won preliminary interest in the U.S. and in various parliaments throughout the world. The seeds planted by Rav Elon, obm, have sprouted and today are a flourishing tree that soon will bear the fruit of sovereignty.
AMOS BEN GERSHOM (NPC)
The Rabbis’ Letter
We wish to encourage the rabbis who sent a letter to the Prime Minister, calling for him to gird himself with political courage and apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley.
“We are now in a critical time for the future of the Land of Israel and the Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria”, wrote the rabbis to the Prime Minister, “The Land of Israel is a spiritual and material asset for the People of Israel. It is our inheritance from our forefathers and is given to us by the Holy One, blessed be He. At this time, we call on your honor to take the opportunity of this historic time to apply full sovereignty over all parts of our Land in Judea and Samaria, the cradle of the Jewish people’s homeland, unconditionally and without any other commitments”.
This is the spirit that will continue to rise from the people to the leadership: the demand for full sovereignty without conditions, commitments or deals. The entire Land of Israel belongs exclusively to the People of Israel.
Educating the next generation at Oz veGaon
We are please G-d organizing 2 major events for the youth this coming week at Oz veGaon. On Sunday we will hold a full day Sovereignty youth seminar with fascinating lectures and workshops. And from Monday to Thursday we will hold an archeological work camp. Stay tuned next week for all the info about these 2 exciting events.
Shabbat shalom,
Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar