The scenes from Jenin and northern Samaria recall the scenes from Gaza, enhancing our understanding that without sovereignty, we will continue to spill our blood in the war against terrorism.
IDF soldiers and officers were engaged in the last few days in a military operation to eradicate the terrorist strongholds in Jenin. However, as we pray for their success and safety, we must also pause to reflect on the insights that arise from the very necessity that forced Israel's leadership to undertake such an operation.
Already from the outset of our discussion, it is clear that the conclusion we seek to establish is repeatedly proven and reinforced by the reality unfolding before our eyes: Only the application of Israel's sovereignty over the entire region between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River can offer a genuine solution to the security challenges we face and halt further political deterioration.
Israel will definitively triumph over terrorism when it assumes full responsibility for the entire territory and exercises governance over every city and village in Judea and Samaria. Without this essential step, military operations will be no more than a band-aid, a temporary measure at best.
Senior IDF officers and government ministers have defined Jenin as the capital of terrorism. This designation should lead any patriotic individual to recognize the futility and folly of the concept of “separation” and of giving the Palestinian Authority the right to “self-administration". This applies not only to our fellow Israelis on the left, but also to those on the right who pin their hopes on the ideas of an independent autonomy for the Palestinian Arabs. Both sides draw up various plans whose purpose is to enable Israel to abdicate responsibility for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. The left is willing to give up extensive parts of our country, even if it means expelling Jews from their homes, while on the right, alongside opposition to a Palestinian Arab state, there are voices advocating to retain only Area C while abandoning Areas A and B, also due to those same concerns regarding Israel taking responsibility for the Arab population in Judea and Samaria.
The images from Jenin, which has become a terrorist hub, must serve as a wake-up call for all of us. These images further reinforce the reality we created in the Gaza Strip when we decided to flee, retreat and transfer control of the territory to the Arabs. The left's hopes that the Palestinian Arab leadership would transform the Gaza Strip into another Singapore and northern Samaria into Tuscany were shattered much faster than anticipated.
We will soon mark the thirtieth anniversary of what many consider the beginning of the disaster—the Oslo Accords, the agreement that brought brigades of terrorists into our land and armed them, out of the delusional hope that they would become our partners and safeguard our security and well-being as well as their fellow Palestinian Arabs.
The clear warnings were ignored, leading to catastrophic consequences with over 1,500 Jewish fatalities and tens of thousands injured, and although devastating, this toll represents only a fraction of the immense and unimaginable price that the people of Israel have paid and continue to pay as a result of the Oslo concept.
However, as noted, the Oslo Accords are considered only the beginning of the disaster. The true genesis of this calamity lies in the Israeli government's panicked decision not to immediately assert Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria following the Six Day War. This decision kept alive the Arabs' hopes to establish a state on our ruins. Since then, this hope has grown into monstrous proportions, and it is the tentacles of this monster that our brave soldiers are currently battling in Jenin and throughout Judea and Samaria.
As long as the Israeli government continues the vacillation and indecision of its predecessors, failing to enforce clear, resolute and responsible sovereignty over the territory, the earth will continue to seethe and rage, while underneath, plans to remove us from here will continue to be devised, while above it weapons will continue to be stockpiled in terrorist warehouses, endangering all of our lives.
That is why targeted operations aimed at clearing out terror nests followed by a quick exit from Jenin, Shchem the Gaza Strip or any other place in Judea and Samaria will never suffice.
Still hovering above such operations is the notion that we must safeguard the Palestinian Authority as a potential future partner, and guard against undermining its strength or harming its officials.
This spurious perception blinds us to the harsh reality in which we live, to the fact that we are engaged in a century-long struggle for control over the Land of Israel. We will never achieve victory if our leaders are driven by conceptions of retreat, concessions and the unfounded belief that our adversaries will protect us. Israel must assume full responsibility for every part of our only land.
This responsibility compels us to confront the challenge of the status of the Arab population. Addressing this challenge involves actively promoting massive immigration of Diaspora Jews to Israel and granting non-citizenship residency status to Arab residents. However, no challenge, however daunting, should ever lead us to succumb to despair or relinquish our claim to the land.
Indeed, these matters apply to every location and site in the Land of Israel, including Shchem and Jenin, where the roots of the Israeli people run deep, and which are an inseparable part of the divine promise to the people of Israel. Jenin, which through our sins has been tarnished with the stain of terrorism, is noted as a city of gardens that lies in the portion of the tribe of Issachar, a city given to the Levites that is mentioned in the book of Joshua and numerous Jewish sources throughout history as a town with a thriving and stable Jewish community. The Jewish history of Jenin, the City of Gardens, continued up to the British Mandate, when a small Jewish community lived there. The ancient name of the city lives on in the establishment of Ganim – gardens – a nearby community that was uprooted as part of the folly of the disengagement in 2005.
Sovereignty means responsibility, capitulation leads to lawlessness. The terror is calling us with thousands of pealing bells – to take ownership and apply sovereignty and governance over the Land of Israel. Without them, we will suffer repeated blows and continue to pay a high, painful and unnecessary price.
Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katsoverhead the Sovereignty Movement.
