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The Jewish People's Rights

(Israel Hayom) Nadav Shragai - A fundamental principle which is so lacking in the current discourse about sovereignty was highlighted by Israeli poet Naomi Shemer writing in Ma'ariv in December 1975. "The Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people...regardless of conditions or temporary ownership of territory, regardless of the essence of a passing rule or a question such as how many Jews are living in the Land of Israel at any given moment." That, if you will, is the unwritten constitution of the State of Israel, the one that begins with "Go from your country...to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1) and continues on to "the hope that is 2,000 years old" and the genetic code of "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem." Even the League of Nations recognized that genome 100 years ago as "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and "the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country" and the Jewish right to "settle in any place in the west of Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea." Security is important but doesn't come before everything else. David Ben-Gurion didn't address the question when he insisted on holding onto far-flung settlements in the Jerusalem hills and in the Negev and the western Galilee. We might be here today because of might, but even before that, because we have a right to be. The writer, a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has documented Jerusalem for Ha'aretz and Israel Hayom for over thirty years.
2020-07-06 00:00:00
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