Following an angry government debate, the Netanyahu government decided to accept the recommendations of Minister Uri Ariel (Bayit Yehudi). Ariel recommended that all laws directly affecting and relating to citizens be automatically applied to citizens living in Judea and Samaria without special additional legislation or rulings. The Ministry of Justice has been told to begin working on this significant change to have it apply within the next few months, according to a report by the Tazpit News Agency.

Until now, anytime a law that was passed that affected private citizens, a second law or ruling needed to be passed to apply to citizens living in Judea and Samaria. The doppelganger law needed to be passed either in the Knesset, or by the IDF military commander in Judea and Samaria.

MK Orit Struck (Bayit Yehudi) recently initiated a doppelganger bill so that a new labor law for women, would also apply to women in Judea and Samaria.

Surprisingly, her bill raised the hackles of certain members of the Knesset, and in particular Minister Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid party, who attempted to block the legislation from passing.

As a result, the discussion was elevated to the level of the government, where in the end Minister Uri Ariel’s position was accepted.

Ariel argued that Israeli citizens in Judea and Samaria fulfill their obligations as every other citizen of Israel does, and it makes no sense that they need to fight separately that every law will also apply to them.

Previously, Ariel taunted Lapid with a variation of Lapid’s campaign slogan, “If there are no rights, there are no obligations”, openly stating that if Israeli citizens in Judea and Samaria don’t benefit from the rights of Israeli law, then why should they have the obligation to pay income and VAT tax.

During the week that the EU announced its planned sanctions against Israel, one of the dedicated Land of Israel lobbyists requested that I add my signature to a petition from MKs to the prime minister requesting the renewal of construction in Jerusalem. Thirty-two highly respectable signatures of loyal MKs from the center and right of Israeli politics already adorned the petition. But after a cursory glance at the following petition, I clearly could not sign:

To: MK Binyamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister

Re: Renewal of Construction in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria – Now

We turn to you regarding the above issue as follows:

1. In these days, we are witness to another attempt by the European Union to terrorize the State of Israel and to damage its vital interests. This attempt may thwart any chance for a political breakthrough and foil the efforts of Secretary of State Kerry to renew the diplomatic negotiations.

2. On the backdrop of this attempt and its results, there is no place to wait any longer and it is imperative to immediately renew construction in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

3. We request that you give the appropriate instructions for renewal of construction.

Respectfully,

“I can’t sign,” I gently said to the lobbyist. “I have a problem with the wording.”

“What’s the problem?”

“This document implies that we must renew construction in Jerusalem so that Kerry can succeed in the diplomatic process. But I think that we must build in Jerusalem for entirely different reasons, and I am absolutely opposed to the diplomatic process.”

The lobbyist tried to convince me that this is pragmatic politics, that this is the argument around which we can now achieve a consensus. “I also don’t like it,” he explained, “but that’s politics.”

The reputable number of MKs that signed the letter proved, on the surface, that he was right. One week later, Kerry succeeded in renewing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Thirty-two MKs, those most loyal to the land of Israel – from Likud, Jewish Home, Yisrael Beiteinu and even Shas – are now signed onto a document that implies that there is no longer a reason to renew construction in Jerusalem. Our common goal – renewal of “peace” talks – has already been achieved.

Would a leftist MK ever dream of adding his name to this type of convoluted document that fundamentally contradicts his entire worldview – all in the name of political pragmatism?

Which politics ultimately determines Israel’s agenda? The “pragmatic” politics of the Right or the ideology of the Left?

It is time for the Right to connect its politics to its ideology.

Eretz Israel , the Land of Israel , is on the international negotiating table. Nothing else. Only Eretz Israel . The world is interested in the welfare of Arabs only where it is possible to attack the Jews. Syria is drowning in rivers of Arab blood, demonstrations in Egypt end with many dead, all of Europe is swept by an extremist Islamic wave that threatens to drown it, the entire Middle East shakes and seems to be hanging by a thread, and the world is so good as to utter a few pretty, hypocritical condemnations, and then quickly goes on as usual – to the “most problematic conflict” in the world – the “territories,” a code name for Eretz Israel.

What is in Eretz Israel that draws so much attention?

Water? Mineral deposits? Open spaces? Oil? Gold? Diamonds?

How is it that, despite all that it does not possess, it is one of the most flourishing countries in the world, in the development of modern industry, medicine, agriculture, high-tech?

It’s because its children have returned to their G-d given promised land, and transformed the desert and wasteland into a settled land, whose fruits are in abundance on roadsides and in stores, its towers reach to the sky, our science is purchased and advances underdeveloped lands.

In light of all this, Israel should have been proud and certain of its capabilities, guarding its borders well, finely understanding its historical role. But, just look, Eretz Israel is on the negotiating table. It stands there alone, its defenders have grown weary, its politicians, instead of safeguarding it, play a dangerous game with it. In the bad-case scenario, this is just “playing with fire,” at the immoral and unbearable cost of releasing 104 terrorists and nothing more – “because in the end the Arabs will torpedo the negotiations and save us from an agreement” as many people wish; and in the even worse-case scenario, this “playing with fire” is liable to leave much more serious burns. We still can smell the stench of the burns from Yamit ,Sinai, Gush Katif, northern Samaria , Hebron. With eyes wide open, our leaders continue to jump into the fire, to receive burns of even higher degree.

It is possible to change course: to leave the path that leads to concessions, and, at long last, to enter the Eretz Israel path of preserving our historical possessions, the path of the application of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, and the actualization of our sovereignty and the guarding of our rights everywhere – in all of Jerusalem , and especially on the Temple Mount, in Galilee, the Negev, south Tel Aviv.

The choice is in our hands: to choose the path that leads, Heaven forbid, to the loss of values and physical destruction , or to choose the vision, the path that leads to the values that Israeli society already held dear in the beginnings of Zionism, in the establishment of the State of Israel, in the settlement enterprise, in the draining of swamps, in the ingathering of exiles, in Operation Entebbe….

We in Women in Green choose to continue and increase our activities for the redemption of lands and the guarding of state lands on the hills of Judea . Along with this, we wish to advance a national campaign for the application of Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria . We need partners for this.

The ideology of the left – that is, dispossessing us from Eretz Israel – was advanced with tremendous international financing, with perseverance, by well-planned and sophisticated campaigns, and with massive media support. Thus, despite the opposition of the majority of the people of Israel that believes that the Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel , the left has succeeded in infiltrating its positions into the Israeli consciousness, as if this were the only ideology that can, and may, be discussed. Every other vision is dismissed by those who champion the “two-state theory” as being delusional and proven to be wrong.

The time has come for the national camp to awaken. The time has come to present the alternative that states, clearly and decisively, that this is our land, and to do so professionally and correctly.