‘No More Shall You Bereave Them of Their Children’
Extending sovereignty over their Land. Realizing the Zionist vision. Dealing with the enemy in their midst. This will do it.
JNS
“Yes, I will cause men to walk on you, My people Israel; they shall take possession of you, and you shall be their inheritance; no more shall you bereave them of their children.” (Ezekiel 36:12)
The national response to the deterioration in Israel’s domestic security status over the past year and a half was reflected at the ballot box on November 1, when voters turned out in record numbers to call on government to act sovereignly to restore security to the land; to reclaim land fast being lost to Arab land theft; to bring Judea and Samaria under the Israeli flag.
This election was a clarion call to government to act decisively and independently, to stop allowing the dictates of other nations, even ‘friendly’ ones, to compromise the security of its people.
And yet, glaringly absent from the Likud’s late-tabled demands for action by the government it hopes to play a leading part in, is a declaration that Israel will extend sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, the national cradle of the Jewish people, and where we find the enemy within, the place from which Arab murderers slither into Israeli cities and towns to wage terror and death.
It is for this reason that the Religious Zionist and Jewish Power parties dug in their heels and insisted on going back to the start of the negotiations with the Likud leader and presumptive prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. They know that the time to take back the Jewish state is now.
Yesterday, 16-year-old Aryeh Shechopek was robbed of his life by Israel-hating Arabs – Arabs who have been given every reason to believe that the more Jews they kill in the name of their cause, the more assured they are of securing it.
Who has taught them this – that violence pays, that aggression unleashed against Israel brings rewards?
We might respond, “Why, their own. Their own leaders have instilled this behaviour in them.”
But Israel itself has also shown them this.
How? By being unwilling to deal uncompromisingly with those out to destroy it. By repeatedly succumbing to pressure, from outside, to “take risks for peace,” to offer its avowed enemy bits and pieces of its ancestral patrimony for pledges the Arabs have shown, consistently, that they have no intention of abiding by.
Small wonder that the world has no respect for an Israel that tries to act independently – that even Israel’s most powerful ‘friends’ believe they can dictate their will and that Israel – imagining it owes the world some gratitude for its existence – will give way.
Small wonder that Jews continue to die.
Israel’s November 1 vote was deemed as the most critical general election in the history of the modern state. The outcome ignited hope.
And yet, the issues of sovereignty over the Land of Israel and over Jerusalem – the keys to finally provide security and longevity for the nation – have been all but lost behind the horse trading, personal ambition and media leaks that make up – and mess up – coalition negotiations. Around these two most essential and critical of matters, Israel’s political leaders cannot coalesce.
This undermines confidence in future performance – how effective can a right-wing coalition be if its members cannot bind on these two vital things? Without agreement on sovereignty over the land and over Jerusalem, what traction or gain will there be in all their other demands on behalf of their constituents?
The Jews may have been obfuscating but Israel’s enemies have not. These Arabs know, they have learned, how to fight for the city and land they illegitimately claim to be theirs.
Hardly had the right-wing election success been published than the Palestinian Arab leadership and the Kingdom of Jordan announced their coordinating efforts to forestall any Israeli attempt to make access to the Temple Mount – the Jews’ holiest site – equally accessible for all.
Concerning the heartland of Israel – Judea and Samaria – the Arabs already have the world in their pocket. For what nation is there that still has the courage to withstand the global tide of delegitimization and condemnation of Jewish settlement in Samaria and Judea? Everywhere the label is affixed “Israel-Palestine”; the United Nations Security Council has declared Samaria and Judea to be Palestinian land; the European Union is bankrolling the building of a Palestinian state here, right before our eyes.
Look with me, again, at Ezekiel 36, reading from verse 1 to 12. In this passage, the LORD God of Israel is speaking to the Land, specifically to the mountains of Israel; the high ground of Judea and Samaria. And in verse 12, this is what He says:
“Yes, I will cause men to walk on you, My people Israel; they shall take possession of you, and you shall be their inheritance; no more shall you bereave them of their children.”
Look at the promise in the whole sentence. God will see that this happens: I will cause; they shall take; you shall be; no more shall you. There are no maybes in this sentence.
But what will it take?
As we watch to see what God will do; as we pray for Israel to do the strong thing, the right thing, and stand on the land that is hers by birthright; as we watch, and pray, and are without answers (except for the Scriptural promises, and the faithfulness of God to keep them), yet there is this question:
What will it take?
The promise is there: Israel will take possession of the high ground. But what will make her take possession?
Perhaps there’s a clue in the second verse?
“Thus says the Lord God: ‘Because the enemy has said of you, “Aha! The ancient heights have become our possession…”’”
If so, are we possibly already there? Have we reached the enemy’s ‘aha!’?
According to Regavim, an NGO that monitors and pursues action in the Israeli court system against illegal Arab construction, the percentage of such construction in Area C of Judea and Samaria – land under full Israeli jurisdiction – increased by 80 percent over the past year, bringing to 72,000 the number of illegal Palestinian Arab structures in that area. In 2022 this mushrooming Arab land grab has been characterised by “palatial residences, sprawling holiday resorts, amusement and entertainment compounds and event halls, swimming pools and vacation villages, and high-rise residential and commercial towers.”
Thus far this year, more than 2,200 terrorist attacks have been recorded, killing 30 people and wounding dozens more. Most of these are planned and executed from Samaria and Judea.
So, could we be there yet? Or might the modern day version of the enemy saying, “Aha!” signify that first there will be the creation of a State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, in Biblical Judea and Samaria?
(With all my heart, I pray not.)
Could it be that God might use such a prospect to push Israel to take possession of the high ground; somehow ‘force’ her into boldness beyond habitual responses and in the face of unbelievable global pressures?
I cannot know the answer, but this I clearly see: that the Jewish body count will continue to climb for as long as Israel perpetuates the decades-old mistake of not extending the law of the Jewish state – and enforcing that law – over the heart of its ancestral land.
And this I know. Concerning Judea and Samaria, God has spoken, and He will do as He says.
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