{Written by Zahava Englard Shapiro and originally posted to the JNS website}
I write this just hours after an Arab terrorist shot and killed two Jews and seriously wounded a third in the Barkan industrial center in Israel’s Shomron region, where thousands of Jews and Arabs work side by side.
I write this just after learning that Arab terrorists set fire to chicken farms in the Yizrael Valley in northern Israel. I write this as southern Israel is still ablaze, for months, due to Arab terrorists in Gaza that began their arson attacks early this past summer.
I write this just 22 days after Ari Fuld ז”ל was murdered in Gush Etzion.
I write this after Israeli citizens have been attacked with rockets, knifed, gunned down, run down, ambushed on our roads, in our streets, in our capital, in our synagogues, in our schools, in our kitchens, and in our beds, spanning decades, with no end in sight.
I write this after listening to countless impeccably written speeches, artfully delivered by our Prime Minister attesting to Israel’s right to defend itself. I write this after listening time and again to our Defense Minister’s empty threats and tedious warnings to our enemy.
The people of Israel wait in vain for the government to take action.
We wait in vain for our leadership to implement concrete security measures, for the government to initiate preventative procedures. We wait in vain for our Prime Minister and Defense Minister to employ a definitive policy of deterrence. We wait in vain for them to execute the courage to put an end to it. To exhibit a desire for victory.
We wait for our leadership to stand as proud Jews against our enemies. With strength of conviction. With dignity. We wait. We bleed. We bury our dead. And we wait some more. In the absence of leadership, we live and die at the whim of our enemies bent on our destruction.
To its shame, this government will go down in history as the one that turned a blind eye to the flow of Jewish blood, and who besmirched the tenet of Jewish dignity that the Likud had once stood for.
Yes, to be certain, our government is front and center with its commitment to helping humanity at large, but at the same time, our leaders forsake its own people. They discard their own identity, their compassion, and their duty to its people and they have shed the pride that accompanies a love of one’s peoplehood.
The Knesset today is home to Jews who sit at the helm, whose Torah and heritage is foreign to them. Rather than take definitive measures to put an end to enemy attacks, they turn on their own, deny the right of the people of Israel to their land, and uproot their people from their homes and property. Worse, they do not possess the mettle to apply our right to pray on the Temple Mount, the Jewish nation’s most sacred place.
Could it be, that in a desperate attempt to grasp at any solution, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen a path of national suicide, by considering an enemy state on our soil? This is the path of those who have lost hope. Perhaps he can claim to be pragmatic. But pragmatism belongs to those who lost their hearts along their way. His pragmatism bares Jewish blood flowing easily throughout our land.
In the vacuum of responsible governance, the onus of security falls on the individual.
Individuals such as Marc Prowisor of The One Israel Fund, who is literally a one-man team who travels all over the country ensuring that communities and First Response teams have the equipment they need to prevent further victims to Arab terror. His mantra of “No more victims” is put into action without flowery speeches or fanfare, and works around the clock to fill in where our government won’t.
Other individuals such as Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katsover, indefatigable leaders of Women In Green, who have labored consistently over the years, preventing colonialist Arabs from destroying our fields and illegally seizing our land, and who are currently spearheading the push for our rightful sovereignty over our ancestral land.
Ari Fuld, HY”D, was also a brave warrior of our country who lived and died giving his life for his people.
There are many more selfless Jews in Israel who take the burden upon themselves to secure our land and our people. What is most important to note, however, is the woeful fact that we need Marc Prowisor, we need Nadia Matar and we need Yehudit Katsover. We need them to fill the void, because our leaders have failed us, and continue to fail us.
Our sovereignty and our security will not come about through flowery speeches or through negotiations. Nor through pleading or acquiescence. Rather, it will come about through Jewish dignity, loyalty to our nation, appreciation of our legitimate heritage and devotion to our ancestral land, along with the courage to stand up for it with determination and with pride.
Such was the ethos of the Likud of old, infused with the honor, integrity and legacy of Betar, the progenitor of the Herut and Likud party. It is time for them to turn to this once more. It is my fervent prayer, that once this missive is published, my words will no longer ring true.