Although we have been pressured into accepting a cease-fire, which will only give our enemies an opportunity to rebuild their war machine meant to destroy the Jewish people, this war has not come to an end. As with our previous wars, beginning with the war of liberation in 1948, we are continually forced to fight for the very existence of our people and the independence of the Jewish homeland.
Unfortunately, our leaders are still immersed in the twisted ideology of Oslo, which created an illusion of achieving “peace” by fleeing from our enemies and abandoning parts of our homeland. This policy of “disengagement” has injected a cancer into our national bloodstream – one that is destroying the natural instincts of national pride and that weakened our determination to decisively finish this war by mobilizing all our forces to assure the destruction of our enemies.
We must open our eyes to the dual powers that have been revealed in this last month of fighting. It has been proven again that the Land of Israel is One. The Land has one soul, which cannot be torn apart and separated in order to be parceled out to our enemies. The evil notion expressed by our leaders – “Who needs Gaza? What are we doing in Gaza? If we amputate this superfluous limb, the rest of the body will be strong and healthy” – has been shown to be self-deceptive, in line with the distorted mentality of disengagement.
Not only did the surrender of Gaza result in the strengthening of our enemies, this “amputated limb” was turned into a force of destruction against our towns and cities in the south. Our enemies in the north took this policy a further step forward, with their intention of destroying the existence of Jewish independence in Israel. Why not apply this policy of amputation by firing destructive rockets on towns and cities in the Galilee, Haifa and Naharia and force a million Jews to be uprooted from their homes?
Our enemies learn quickly. If Jewish leaders succeeded in uprooting thousands of Jews and destroying their homes, then Nasrallah and his gangs can uproot a million Jews and destroy their homes.
What a horrendous lesson to be learned by such a painful comparison. There is only one clear conclusion at which any responsible leader must arrive: The Land of Israel has one soul that projects its powers of life throughout the entire bloodstream, reaching every corner of the Land, encompassing all of its territory.
Let us again make it clear: Only Jews can bring life and creativity to the Land, whereas others can only bring destruction. “And I will make the Land desolate, and your enemies will be desolate upon the Land” (Leviticus 26:32). Our sages explain that this curse is really a blessing. Just as the Jewish people in Exile will remain loyal to the Land, so too will the Land of Israel remain loyal to the Jewish people. The Land will not bear its fruit and powers of life for anyone else. Only the Jewish people can bring life, both physical and spiritual, to the Land. Others can only bring terror and destruction.
The second powerful phenomenon revealed again in this war is the fact that the people of Israel are One. The Jewish Nation was granted a Divine Soul, with great powers of unity – unity of devotion and unity of purpose. The distorted “peace” strategy of fleeing from our enemies was rationalized by our leaders with the false claim, “Our people are tired, they don’t want to fight any more.”
This rationalization, begun at Oslo, was continued by Mr. Sharon as an excuse for disengagement. This maligning of the people of Israel was further exacerbated by Mr. Olmert in a speech in New York when he said, “We are tired of fighting; we are tired of being courageous; we are tired of winning wars; we are tired of vanquishing our enemies.”
The truth is, these leaders have become tired and, lacking the courage to admit their incompetence and relinquish their positions, they project this lethargy upon the people. This weakness has brought them to a policy of compromising, yielding and fleeing. The disintegration of responsibility and national pride stems from a complete disengagement from Zionist faith and Jewish values, not to mention the most basic survival instinct.