Maintaining a hold on the Land of Israel

(JNS) — Strong winds are blowing around us — to the north, south, east and west. Regimes are wavering or collapsing, and new ones are rising. We must not be passive because what they all have in common is a fervent hope for our destruction.

Protecting our lands and stabilizing our borders is a clear and present necessity. We must immediately apply sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, Gaza and the Jordan Valley, and broaden our hold on the Golan Heights and Lebanon. Thank God, while writing these lines, we have been informed of Israel’s liberation of the Syrian side of Mount Hermon.

In this tumultuous period, we must also learn the lesson of the instability of the regimes surrounding us. We hear the political and diplomatic voices pushing for an agreement with Saudi Arabia, but we must not fall into the honey trap of signing an agreement with Saudi Arabia in exchange for a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel. We have witnessed in the past, and continue to witness today, the collapse and fall of Middle Eastern regimes. Hamas took control of Gaza, Hezbollah took control of Lebanon, regimes in Libya and other countries fell, and likewise, the Syrian regime fell to the rebels.

This is in addition to radical political-diplomatic upheavals like those in Iran in the 1970s and Egypt in the 2000s. Countries friendly to Israel found themselves ruled by extreme Islamist leaders. The throne of the king of Jordan has been unsteady for a long time, and the assessment is that without tacit, strong Israeli support, it would have collapsed.

Application of sovereignty is the only way to stabilize the ground on which we are standing. There is no political agreement that could equal the significance of applying Israeli sovereignty over the land.

The massacre of 1,200 people on Simchat Torah on Oct. 7, 2023 made it clear to the majority of Israelis that living alongside a terrorist monstrosity that is nothing more than an Iranian proxy is not sustainable for a country that seeks to survive.

Already now, Arabs in Judea and Samaria are equipping themselves with advanced weapons smuggled from Iran. Already now, they are preparing for a coordinated use of those weapons in a much more comprehensive model than what we encountered in the Simchat Torah massacre. No rational person maintains it is suitable and logical to allow the establishment of a state for an enemy of that kind.

From the West, too, war is being waged against us — albeit not with knives, rifles and tanks. On this front, the war is about truth and justice. This cultural and spiritual battle is, at times, more difficult than the military struggle where the enemy is clear and threatening. It is easy to mobilize every person in Israel in the struggle for survival. In the war over spirit and justice, however, we must rely on the divine security that has been stable for thousands of years on our historical roots and our right to this land, a right that has been recognized throughout the world, a right that was the basis for establishing the national home for the Jewish people precisely here, in the Land of Israel. From a position that is so solid, we can proffer before the entire world a just, moral, and Jewish claim to our right to the Land of Israel in its entirety.

These days appear to be the beginning of a new era, and we must figure out how to subtly move through it with political and regional wisdom. The new alliances between different factions in the Middle East may encourage Arab emigration from Judea and Samaria, and the Gaza Strip to places where they can build their future together with their brethren without deteriorating into bloodshed. But will we know how to spearhead a process of that kind?

After the events of Oct. 7, eyes have been opened, and the fog of preconceived notions is clearing. As it says in Genesis 15:18, “To your descendants, I have given this land, from the river of Egypt until the great river, the Euphrates River,” and as it says in Isaiah 2:2-3, “It shall be at the end of days that the mountain of the House of the Lord will be established at the top of the mountains and will be elevated above the hills, and all the nations will stream to it. Many peoples will go and say: ‘Let us go and ascend to the mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob, and He will instruct us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.’ For from Zion, will come forth Torah and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”