Israel’s enemies place Jerusalem at the forefront of their struggle against it. It is incumbent upon the Israeli government to respond specifically in that arena, and to establish the “Greater Jerusalem” initiative.
If the centrality of Jerusalem in our lives was not clear enough, our enemies have come and forcefully introduced it into our national consciousness.
Hamas, the organization that is crying out for a cease fire, is raising its head and demanding conditions regarding Jerusalem as part of a cease fire agreement with Israel.
The organization’s demands include, among others, conditions for prayer on the Temple Mount, evacuating Jewish residents of the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood, and the removal of checkpoints. If their demands are not met, the terrorist organization warns that it has the ability to execute painful attacks against us.
The organization also rationalized its entire decision to initiate the present missile attack against the Israeli rear, attributing it to its demands regarding Jerusalem.
Iran, which arms the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, continues to brandish its concern for al-Quds as the reason for its aspiration to destroy the little Satan, i.e., Israel.
The Turkish sultan, Erduan, dispatches from his palace fiery arrows in our direction, as he, again and again, considers himself the emissary of the Moslem nation for the defense and rescue of Jerusalem.
The Arab rioters, too, who engaged in violence and carried out acts of lynching and pogroms against their Jewish neighbors, did so as an expression of their “concern” for the future of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
Israel must stand resolute against those who seek its harm. Israel’s leaders must understand the essential significance of Jerusalem in the life of the Jewish people in the past, present, and future, and specifically in that arena must respond with an appropriate Zionist response.
This is the time to promote the “Greater Jerusalem” program, which emulates the metropolitan configuration that exists in many world capitals.
According to this plan, Jerusalem will include Gush Etzion to its south, Maale Adumim to its east, Mevaseret Zion to its west, and to its north, the communities of central Binyamin.
The Jerusalem law, which establishes Israeli sovereignty over its eternal capital, will be implemented over all those areas.
This course of action, which, by the way, one of its principal formulators was Aryeh Hess, a member of the Labor party, and one of its proponents is Finance Minister Yisrael Katz, will clarify to the world, and especially to ourselves, Jerusalem’s significance for the Jewish people, and the agenda of the Jewish people regarding the city’s future and its own future.
A resolute Israeli statement in Jerusalem, a city regarding which there is a consensus on the Right and on the Left, will be a decisive factor in the ongoing war.