On October 7th, we were invited to participate in a Zoom organized by Mort Klein, chairman of the ZOA. Below is a link to the zoom and a transcription of our remarks. Other participants included MK Dan Illouz, attorney Alan Dershowitz, and Dr. Sebastian Gorka.
Shalom , Shana Tova and thank you.
Thank you Mort Klein for inviting us. Thank you for all the wonderful work you and ZOA do for Israel and the Jewish people.
I represent here my co-chair Yehudit Katsover, who is the mastermind behind the Sovereignty Movement when already in 2011 she rightfully said that it is not enough to say "No to a Palestinian State" which we know is the end of Israel as the Jewish state, but the National Camp needs to present an alternative – which we believe has to be the application of Israeli sovereignty over the land of Israel. Jewish settlement is important but is not enough to keep the land in our hands as we saw in 2005.
Mort you asked that on this difficult day of October 7th, exactly a year after the genocidal massacre by Arabs of so many Jews- that we talk about the cause, the meaning and implications.
To put it simply: The cause: lack of Israeli sovereignty.
The meaning: Israel must and will restore its strength and deterrence-Thru sovereignty. I will explain.
The implication: when Israel please G-d will restore its sovereignty, and will implement it from the river to the sea -Israeli sovereignty, including Gaza and in Lebanon at least till the Litani , then there will be a New Middle East, and Israel will have saved Western civilization from itself. Yes, this war is not only about Israel's survival but the survival of Western civilization. The powers of evil that Israel is at war with, on 7 different fronts (Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Judea and Samaria and of course Iran) are powers that have as a slogan:
Translated from the Arabic: On Saturdays we will kill the Jews- On Sundays we will kill the Christians
In other words they say: “we first will destroy Israel and then go on to destroy Europe and turn it into Eurabia, on to America etc… Step one to destroy Israel is to call for the creation of a Palestinian state whose entire purpose is Israel's destruction”.
Let's make things clear: Anyone in favor of a Palestinian state is in favor of the destruction of Israel and thus anyone who wants Western civilization to survive- must oppose the creation of a Palestinian state and must allow Israel to reach complete victory.
And victory over these powers will be: Israeli sovereignty over its G-d given Biblical Homeland. Sovereignty means that Israel , the nation state of the Jewish People will proudly declare: this land is ours and only ours, given to us by G-d, or as Ben Gurion said: the Bible is our mandate, international law is on our side too, and never again will we give up not even one inch to any foreign ruler. Not to the terrorist Palestinian Authority that needs to be dismantled, not the antisemitic European Union, nor any so-called moderate arab countries like the Emirates or Saudia with whom we can make business deals yes, but we cannot allow them to have any say or stronghold in our land. Israel must be the sole sovereign over its land, its weapon industry, its agriculture, its economy.
This year we suffered a severe and painful blow, but Thank G-d the people of Israel have risen courageously to strike the enemy. Thousands of Israeli heroes and heroines, the amazing soldiers, the amazing wives and families of the soldiers, the amazing skills of the IDF, Mossad that stunned the world- thanks to all these we see that Hamas is please G-d on its way to being destroyed, hopefully Hizbollah will soon be too, in Iran they dont sleep very well waiting for Israel's response to their attack last week. We pray that this government will not stop until complete victory.
But we must ask : What are the lessons we learned? And what needs to be done?
Lesson Number one: we learned the hard way to know who our neighbors are. I purposely used the word "the massacre by Arabs" and I don’t say by Hamas- because the beheading, the raping, the killing, the stabbing, the burning of Jews was not only done by Hamas terrorists in uniform with army weapons but by civilians of the entire population of Gaza. Those who the Jews of the south allowed to enter their homes, who had coffee with them, those arabs who worked in the Jewish kibbutzim and were given good conditions and salaries. These same arabs committed the crimes. Young and old came to butcher the Jews. To behead Jewish babies. With shovels. Sticks. Knives. Young Arab men called up their moms and cheered that their hands were dipping in Jewish blood and their mothers praised them and urged them to continue. Not only in Gaza. The arabs of Judea and samaria overwhelmingly supported the crimes and teach their children to go in that same direction. These are people who have been taught in the Koran since they were born that it is a holy commandment to kill Jews and those who kill Jews go to heaven and their families receive great stipends. Any capitulation on our part is seen as weakness and only increases their appetite.
Lesson number 2: The only way that they will not kill the Jews is if we stop talking French or Yiddish and start talking Arabic- i.e. if we make sure we are strong and if we make sure that they don't get motivation, means and weapons to kill and that when they try – that the price is so high that they will not dare do it again for hundreds of years.
Lesson nr 3: what happened that enabled them to commit these horrors?
We , Israel, are at fault. We enabled that monster to grow. For Israel made the fatal mistake in 1967, when we won the Six Day war - Israel did not include the liberated areas into official Israel. Instead of applying sovereignty it left a vacuum. Luckily a group of heroic Jews, took the initiative and founded the settlement movement convincing the different governments to recreate Jewish communities in our heartland. Thanks to these pioneers we are close to 1 million Jews in these areas but what hasn’t changed? The legal status! There still is no sovereignty! When Israel doesn’t apply its sovereignty- it passes on the message that it is not sure it is ours forever. Not applying sovereignty gives the Arabs hope that they can still steal our land and gives them motivation to continue with terror.
By not applying sovereignty we allowed the lie to grow of an invented Palestinian people that falsely claims this land is theirs. When Israel doesn’t apply its sovereignty- the world sees it as an "occupier".
Because Israel did not apply its sovereignty it opened the way to plans that tried to solve the "conflict". That is how the horrendous Oslo accords came into the world with Chamberlain-like Israeli leaders who foolishly believed the murderer Yasser Arafat and his false promises and gave him weapons, ammunition and parts of our homeland. The Oslo Accords brought upon us not only 1500 Jews murdered in the nineties but also brought upon us the massacre of October 7th.
In conclusion:
A military victory of Israel over Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran is crucial but not enough.
This war is about the battle of Israel for its survival and for the survival of western civilization. This war is about sovereignty. We are happy more and more people join the sovereignty call and vision, including ambassador David Friedman with his new book and plan.
Because of the many challenges, we all understand that it needs to be done in stages. Our movement calls for the urgent application of sovereignty over the Jordan valley first. Its Israel's eastern border. Iran is using it to infiltrate murderers and weapons. That must stop. There are very few Arabs there. There is large consensus about it in Israel on the Right and on the Left. It will enable investors to invest and build large Jewish cities some 30 minutes from the Dan area. And most importantly-it will prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.
Application of Sovereignty, parallel to a military victory, will be the diplomatic political knock-out blow to our enemies and the cherry on the sundae of victory.
Let us finish with a prayer to the Almighty that he grants us victory over our enemies, the safe return of our hostages from captivity, the security and well being of our soldiers, the return of the displaced residents of the North and the South to their homes, unity for our nation and Israeli Sovereignty in the land of Israel.
Am Yisrael Chai. Shana Tova Gmar Chatima Tova.