In recent weeks, a glimmer of hope has begun to shine for the residents of the Jewish settlement in Hebron. After many years of suffocation and the prevention of any possibility of expanding Jewish control in the ancestral city, there is an indication of an intention to allow the construction of thirty new housing units.
Wait, don't rush into dancing. This is just the beginning of a process, and experience shows that it can be stuck many times along the way.
The bottom line is still very bleak - in the last twenty years, only four houses have been built in Jewish Hebron. I hope that now things will be ripe for actual construction, which will give some momentum to the development of the Jewish settlement.
Fifty years of suffocation
This reality shows the great gap between grand declarations and the paucity of action. All the heads of state have floated lofty words into the air about the importance of the Jewish hold on Hebron, won applause and made headlines, but the bottom line is - suffocation.
Fifty years after the liberation of Hebron, its Jewish residents live in a ghetto. Even when they buy a house with the best of their money, the security and legal systems immediately take care to deprive them of the right to property.
An absurd reality is created here: Hebron is almost constantly in the headlines of the world media, and the world is under the impression that Israel is exercising the full force of its control there, at the expense of the 'poor' Arabs; while the truth is that there is no Jewish settlement that suffers from the narrowing of its steps and the countless restrictions imposed on it like the Jewish settlement in Hebron.
And it is sad and painful, because Hebron should have been a symbol of the fact that we are the legal owners of the place, and of repelling the false propaganda of the Arabs.
There is no place where it is so easy to show how the Arabs are trying to appropriate sites that are not theirs and distort history.
Every child who reads the Bible knows that the Cave of the Patriarchs was bought with full money for the burial of Sarah. What about the Ishmaelites and Sarah, Isaac's mother? The cave also contains Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, the fathers and mothers of the Jewish nation. What right do the Arabs have over the place where our ancestors were buried?
On the contrary, the very construction of a Muslim mosque on a distinctly Jewish site is an illustration of the Arabs' predatory attempt to erase Jewish history in the Land of Israel and to rob the Jewish people of their sacred sites.
They did the same thing on the Temple Mount, the holiest place for the Jewish people, and they also built a mosque there, and they are not ashamed to deny the very existence of the Temple on Mount Moriah.
Actions, not words
The Arabs, who present themselves as unfortunate plunderers, have prevented Jews from accessing the tombs of their ancestors for seven hundred years (!) They have barely allowed them to ascend to the seventh step, near the southeastern gate. The Jews, on the other hand, do not prevent Muslims from praying in the Cave of the Patriarchs, but rather all they want is for it to be a place where Jews can live and pray at the tombs of their ancestors, and they are presented as the 'bad guys' in this conflict.
The more we speak confidently about our right to Hebron in particular and to the Land of Israel in general, the more we build there without apologizing and without being frightened by the sound of a blown leaf – the more we will convince the world. But after fifty years, actions are needed, not just words.
Join the Haredim 10 Facebook page >>
Join the X page of Haredim 10 >>
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
