Is this not totally absurd? And is it not also obscene in the eyes of all the families who have had loved ones murdered or maimed by Al Aksa? Yossi Beilin campaigns loudest for Barghouti’s immediate release from jail. Very significantly, he has committed his Meretz party as a future coalition partner with Sharon’s Kadima.
What does this and the current political campaign in Israel have to do with the story of Joseph and his abandoned tomb? The answer is: Everything. Whether you call it Oslo 1, Oslo 2 or disengagement, it is a 21st century exodus from our homeland, an inexorable process of dispossession for us and empowerment of our enemies to press for even greater concessions under a threat of terrorism that, our leaders have clearly shown, pays out in spades.
Much of this election campaign will be about Jerusalem and Sharon’s ominous silence on the extent of future concessions on land and sovereignty. Like the sobbing Rabbi Porush, we Jews must declare, before it is too late, that this land is important to us, that we shall not yield it to our enemies either in a bloody war or for a phoney peace.
As a vital first step, we need to immediately demand restoration of our rights of access to Joseph’s tomb. If the prime minister does not have the guts to enforce the few legal rights we still have under discredited accords, he cannot be trusted to sign away one further inch of Eretz Yisrael.
