Op-Ed: I Will Stop Defending Israel if it Gives Up the Land

If Israel gives up its Biblical heartland, why should we support a Jewish state?

Giulio Meotti

The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary. He is at work on a book about the Vatican and Israel.

The Zionist project was based on the historical necessity, to use a Marxist phrase, of creating a safe haven for European Jews as a reaction to 19th-century anti-Semitism.

But this miraculous process of Jewish reappropriation of the military also spurred the conflict between the State of Israel and the Land of Israel. Such a state for assimilated Jews could have been actualized in Argentina, Uganda or Birobidzhan.


The consequences have been Amona, Homesh, Gush Katif, Kadim, Gadim, Migron.... Ruthless and merciless experiments of Jewish self-exile which have dramatically tested even the faith of non-Jews who believe in the State of Israel.
Now the Eretz Yisrael's mountains, valleys, borders, historical identity, cultural affections, national passions which characterize the entire mountain range from Jenin to Hevron - historically, culturally and religiously the Jewish land of the Bible, where lie the greatest Jewish names of hope and redemption - Elon Moreh, Itamar, Negohot, Beit Haggai, Yitzhar, Tel Rumeida - have been put on the "negotiating table" once again, like meat at the market.
And to the names of the historic destroyers like Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, Commander of the Roman Legions, we risk adding the Jewish names Rabin, Peres, Barak, Olmert, Livni - and now Netanyahu.
Everybody knows that a Palestinian Arab Islamic state cannot come into existence if the Jewish "settlements" remain in their present locations. And this is a consequence of terrorism.
It began with the slogan "only a political solution will end Palestinian terrorism", which was echoed by IDF commanders who lost the war on terrorism. It was a war that for seven years (1987-1994) they were never required to win. Cynically, the governments directed things so that there was no possible solution but surrender.
IDF strongholds have been abandoned, dismantled, even looted by Palestinian mobs. Above all, the prime ministers' pronouncements isolated "Jewish settlers", questioned their legitimacy, defamed them, and tried to break their spirit. They also made life in some of the besieged "settlements" impossible.
Everybody also knows that evacuating the IDF from Palestinian Arab-populated areas will primarily affect the Jewish population in Jerusalem and the center of the country. A hostile foreign army will not face obstacles on the way to Tel Aviv.
The shocking memories of synagogues ablaze in Gush Katif is a sight unseen since the Nazi Kristallnacht and was now repeated in the State of the Jews by the Jews. Could it happen again? Why not?
For me, the Jewish cause transcends everything. Israel is the Jewish state; Jerusalem is Jewish, and exclusively Jewish; Hevron is forever Jewish.
If the "settlements", the world's Jewish designated sacrifical lamb, will be abandoned and destroyed, for the first time since the days of Joshua, the holy land will become the home of a foreign, vicious people. This is what I learned from the Bible.
No real pro-Israel friend will be able to be comforted after the day the Jewish state forsakes the most precious pieces of real estate in the world.
Let's hope that the tragedy of Oslo, the very grave of the Jewish people, will never repeat itself.
A post-retreat and rationalistic-hedonist State of Israel, which gives up the heartland for the sake of "democracy" and under the threat of the PA death sentence for the Jewish people, doesn't deserve my activism and support.