There is something I want to say to my government and it is this: you cannot blame the world for labeling products from Judea and Samaria with the equivalent of a big yellow star, if you will not exercise sovereignty over the territories.
How could you possibly expect Europe or America to think of Judea and Samaria as part of Israel, if you yourself do not declare them so, loudly and proudly? How can we blame John Kirby for calling Tekoa, “the West Bank,” as though it were in Jordan?
The Likud is supposed to stand for Greater Israel and for building homes for our people in our nation, wherever they live. Yet, the Israeli government, headed by a prime minister associated with the ideals of Likud and Jabotinsky, will not implement the steps suggested by the Edmond Levy Report, a report the Prime Minister himself, commissioned. Instead, he accuses the EU of double standards in discriminating “only against Israel.”
But actually, the double standard is Bibi’s own, for omitting to exercise sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, which effectively tells the world a lie: that Judea and Samaria are not part of Israel. It is the Israeli government that persists in perpetuating this mythical concept of Judea and Samaria as somehow separate from, and outside of the State of Israel. It is the Israeli government that refuses to end the state of martial law in Judea and Samaria. It is the Israeli government that refuses to make the declaration that must be made: Judea and Samaria are as much a part of Israel as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Now we do know why Bibi won’t implement the findings of the Levy Commission. We know he’s afraid to poke a hornet’s nest and further isolate Israel from the international community. But Dafna Meir’s murder teaches all of us that we must put the truth above our fear. At Dafna’s funeral, her husband Natan said,
“Dafna had a large crown: the crown of truth. She was very honest, as accurate as a razor. Not everyone liked that but everyone was able to appreciate it, and this truth has now been thrown to the ground, it has burst into smithereens.
“I request that everyone who came out here, pick up something from the light that was spilled on the ground, so that truth may spring from the earth.”
Here, therefore, is my smithereen of light, the one I pick up from the ground that covers Dafna’s still cold body: Dear Mr. Prime Minister, fear no one but God and proudly proclaim us the sole owner of the title to all our land: the land He gave us. Show the world you are not afraid. Show the world might and do not hesitate to take ownership of Judea and Samaria.
Tell the world there can be no negotiations over the gift God gave us, the gift of the land. For we are not only the owners of the land, but the stewards of it, too. We hold the land safely close to us and protect it for our descendants, too. It is not ours alone, and therefore, we cannot possibly give it away, now or ever, for any reason at all.
The world must accept this truth, and we must not have it any other way, but that they will accept this truth.
It is on our shoulders to say this out loud and proud. All the land is ours. And we can only say this by declaring an end to martial law in Judea and Samaria.
It is by showing our might, and by speaking our truth, that we will win this war, and put an end to this situation in which mothers of children can be murdered in their homes. This is the mantle you wear, Prime Minister Netanyahu, the one you’ve assumed in order to protect us, the people who voted you into office. The time to apply sovereignty is now. Because more of us are dying every day.
And the clock is ticking loudly.
