Another Sovereignty Youth seminar, this time under Corona restrictions, was held in Gush Etzion. This is how a vision becomes a reality.
Entitled “Focusing”, the Sovereignty Youth Movement held the movement’s fifth seminar at the Oz veGaon preserve in Gush Etzion, attended by public figures and instructors for leadership workshops. The seminar was held in “capsules” and in accordance with Ministry of Health guidelines, and was broadcast live on the Sovereignty Movement’s Facebook page, where it was watched by youths from all parts of the Land.
The speakers included Member of Knesset Bezalel Smotrich, head of Gush Etzion Council Shlomo Ne’eman, the CEO of the New Guard Yoel Zilberman, Dr. Hagai ben Artzi, the co-chairwomen of the Sovereignty Movement Yehudi Katsover and Nadia Matar and others.
The day opened with Shlomo Ne’eman, head of Gush Etzion Council, the hosting council for the conference. Ne’eman described the daily ramifications of the lack of sovereignty for the Israeli citizen living in Judea and Samaria and for the local authorities that have to cope with the impossible bureaucratic complexity . “The law is different here”, he said.
Ne’eman described the reality that exists in every other place, where, if a mistake is discovered in how the state has given land to a particular party, the solution is to award damages to the original owner of the land, but never evacuation, destruction and taking land from the one who had received it. Sovereignty will change this reality, explained Ne’eman, when the law in in Judea and Samaria is the same as the law in the other parts of the Land.
“If an Arab planted something on land that was state land, it immediately belongs to him and he can register ownership of the land, but if a Jew works the land, it does not belong to him. There is one law for the Jews and another law for the Arabs because the Jews have no rights in Judea and Samaria. The Left claims that we are causing apartheid, but in fact, they are causing apartheid for the Jews. We do not have the same rights that the Arabs have”, Ne’eman remarked.
Former minister, Member of Knesset Bezalel Smotrich laid out his political plan before the youth, which is called the Resolution Plan. Smotrich stated that “Time after time the steps taken by the Left, who deny the commandments of the Torah and the realities of history, bring about bad results for us and the Arabs”.
According to him, the necessary answer that will ultimately be good for the Jews as well as for the Arabs, is to cut off their national aspiration in the Land of Israel and grant them individual rights for those who are interested. “The ones who give up national aspirations will remain here to receive all of the abundance and the good that this Land has to offer”.
“If we want to cut off the Arabs’ hope to establish a state here, that is intended to replace us, we must apply sovereignty and begin a wave of development and immigration of another million people, so that no reasonable person in the world would think that there is a chance in the world to uproot the settlement enterprise. This is what will determine the consciousness. Building cities and towns, so that it will be clear that it is impossible to uproot the blocs of settlement, so that it will be clear that there will not be a Palestinian state that will realize the national aspiration of the Palestinian movement. The settlement enterprise is part of a political plan intended to end the bloody conflict”.
This process might have a number of responses from the Arab side, says Smotrich, explaining: there are those, and he believes they are the majority, that will internalize the new reality and adjust to it as individuals who will recognize the existence of the state and will receive the rights that it confers. There are those who will internalize this but will not want to give up their national aspirations and will prefer to emigrate to another place where it will be possible for them to do this. “We will accompany the process with a plan to encourage emigration; we will teach them useful professions, we will give them 1.5 times the value of their house and will teach them how to begin a new life in another place”. And there will be a group that will prefer to fight and the IDF, which knows how to fight and win, will face them with resolve.
Regarding the question of the vote, Smotrich clarifies that as a state that wants to continue to exist, it will not be possible to give them the right to vote (for Knesset) in the first phase. On the other hand, it will be possible to establish municipal administrations to manage Arab life and will regulate their rights and freedoms, and those who, despite this, still desire to vote for parliament can do it in Jordan.
“It will be a complex process since we encouraged their illusion and hope to establish a national entity when we agreed to the concept of partition, and that there is such a thing as a Palestinian people”.
The CEO of the New Guard Yoel Zilberman was also among the speakers at the seminar, and he told of the impossible conditions faced by the farmers, who must not only deal with agriculture alone, but are forced to spend most of their day and their strength in protecting the agricultural areas and farms from harm by Arabs and Bedouins because of the lack of enforcement by the authorities.
Zilberman elaborated on the importance of preserving the land as an expression of the state’s sovereignty, as is also done in very large countries. According to him, having had a secular education, he feels that things written by the fathers of practical Zionism, for example, A.D. Gordon, Ben Gurion and others were good for that generation, while his generation itself lives in an educational vacuum, as he defines it. “You realize that you have an alarming lack of awareness of the story of your people, and this does not hold water”. Zilberman criticized the attitude that has contempt for the value of agriculture today, an attitude that, in his words, has begun to be heard in the Right as well. “There is nothing as crazy as this”, he stated. “The statement that we don’t need agriculture shows a disconnect and lack of understanding of the significance of a sovereign and free people in its Land”.
The project of kibbutz settlement began with small groups of 10 to 20 young people, Zilberman reminds us. “You need groups that will look at the great challenges”, he said, calling on the youth to turn to large deeds, to have a presence in the field, to become experts in their fields, to deepen and broaden themselves and be sure to keep their feet planted firmly on the ground and their mind on the heavens. “Strength of spirit is no less important than professionalism; without spirit being at least as strong as the act, the entire enterprise will not stand, and this is what the collective movement is all about”. The way to strengthen the spirit, states Zilberman, is through the group.
The Prime Minister’s brother-in-law, Dr. Hagai Ben Artzi, was also among the speakers at the seminar, and in his lecture, he spoke of the borders of the Land of Israel promised in the Bible.
From the Scriptures, Dr. Ben Artzi proved that “Sinai was also part of what the Almighty promised to Abraham; Sinai also is part of the Land of Israel”, and because of this, “we will return there and this time it will be forever”. He continued, with a statement based on the passages that the eastern border of the Land of Israel is the Saudi desert and not just Transjordan, as some believe.
When asked if the positions that he presents are not radical, Dr. Ben Artzi notes that this is not the first time that he has been asked this question and his answer is that “there is nothing more radical than what Herzl said when he spoke about establishing a Jewish state. Nordau told him that apparently his illness had become worse and he should be hospitalized. There were only a few outposts in the Land of Israel and who thought at that time about a Jewish state. Herzl went from the Emperor to the Sultan and other leaders and they all threw him out, but twenty years after the First Zionist Congress, the League of Nations makes a declaration about a national home for the Jewish People. No one could have believed it. Just as these words seemed delusional and radical, these things too, sound delusional and radical”.
For the second part of the seminar the youths took part in workshops, which were also conducted in accordance with Corona restrictions.
Entitled From an Idea to Practicality, the youths gathered under the leadership of Eran Tobol, for practical ways to turn Herzl’s vision of the Jewish state into a practical plan that became a reality. For this, they combined media hasbara activities, fund-raising, setting up work teams, leading a congress and political activity, thus the dream was woven detail by detail.
Another workshop dealt with who to convey messages, led by Eldad Harel, an IT engineer and mentor in this field. The youths practiced ways of conveying messages effectively and acceptably to the public and the correct, respectful way to conduct an argument, which does not create antagonism.
Itamar Yom Tov, one of the chairmen of the Sovereignty Youth Movement, relates to the seminar as another layer in the design of the movement’s activity for the future. “Last year Sovereignty Youth was one of the leaders in the field of social media, and during the Corona crisis, we acted within the rules, new coordinators came in and the youth went out for widespread hasbara activities in booths that were scattered throughout the Land, we held conversations, meetings and lectures on Zoom as well as staring new nuclei. During the coming year, we will focus on expanding the activity in the field and we will increase activity in the regional nuclei”.
Yom Tov continues, relating to the revolution in consciousness that the movement has caused: “I am happy that I am living in the generation that is the direct continuation of those who drained the swamps and the generation of the undergrounds. The youths who come from all parts of the Land in order to focus on action with fire in their eyes and who dedicate their time on behalf of the noble goal, are youths acting out of the understanding of their historic mission as the next generation in the chain of generations that is redeeming the Land of Israel”.
The co-chairwomen of the Sovereignty Movement, Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, summarize the event with great satisfaction, emphasizing the importance that the speakers focused on matters of sovereignty, the importance of its borders and how to implement it, which is why the seminar was given the title “Focusing”. “The meeting comes after a long period of Zoom meetings, and there too, Corona restrictions had an effect, mainly because of the need to work in capsules, however, we felt that it was important to meet and discuss matters, to hear the speakers and the youths who continue to demonstrate the ability for impressive, creative thinking”.
The two women emphasize that the participants of the seminar came from all parts of the Land, from Haifa, Beit She’an, Samaria, Gush Etzion, Rehovot, Giv’at Shmuel and other places. “The seminar concluded with a brainstorming session on how to continue the movement’s activities and an ideological discussion took on practical significance. We have no doubt that the leaders of the next generation are among the young men and women of the movement, who even now, understand well the mission of the generation and are fully prepared for it”.
