A response to the Editorial Column of the Jewish Week edition for Shabbat 12/21/03

http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editcolcontent.php3



Letter to the Editor:



Dear Gary,



I would like to disagree with your editorial. How can we expect American college students to feel proud about Israel, regardless of what we teach them, if Israelis do not feel proud about Israel???!!!



Today’s war in Israel is not about borders, as the media makes it out to be, rather at its core it is a war about an idea – the idea that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people. The Arabs have always fought against this idea and we see today that they have succeeded in convincing most of the world, most of the Jews and many Israelis too!



In order to win this war, we need leaders who can stand up for the right of the Jewish people to live in all of the land of Israel, anything less is a symbolic gesture to the Arabs that we are wrong and they are right

!

In the Madrid conference, it is said that a Syrian official confronted an Israeli official and asked him if he believes that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people and the Israeli official answered yes. The Syrian official then responded to the Israeli that obviously he doesn’t believe it because he is in Madrid talking about giving away parts of the Land of Israel to others!

In our eyes we might see practicality, but in the Arabs eyes this is a symbolic weakening of the Jewish people that has continued until this day!



When we have Israeli leaders who stand up for our right to live in all of Israel, regardless of the pressure, then Israelis, Americans, and even American college students will feel proud of Israel. Until then, we will all be embarrassed by Israel’s existence, because it is not standing up for us, actually, it is barely standing at all.



May we soon experience the type of pride in the Land of Israel that world Jewry felt after the 1967 war, operation Entebbee and the bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor. Pride based on the knowledge that the Land of Israel is a proud country that stands up for itself and for the Jewish people.



Avi