For starters, I have a confession to make. For me, the decision tomorrow is not between Likud and the Jewish Home, but rather between Likud and Michael Ben-Ari, who is leading the Power for Israel slate. I have nothing but respect for MK Ben-Ari and were I to vote based on my heart – it would be for him. He has spent all his time the past four years fighting for us in the Knesset, on remote hilltops and in south Tel Aviv (against the influx of illegal aliens). He is a genuine lover of Israel and a proud Jew, and again, were I voting based on my heart, I would not care what the polls were showing regarding his chances of getting in – and would proudly vote for him.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), when voting I follow my head as emotions have this nasty habit of getting in the way of good decisions. As such, I will devote the rest of this rant to why, in my humble opinion, the Likud is a better choice than Bayit Yehudi.

I returned to Israel in 1999 after many years in the U.S. and I can still remember how one of the things that bothered me most in the U.S. was the lack of “togetherness.” With all the challenges we face here in Israel, in the U.S. things were worse. Each American Jewish community was an island unto its own and if not for the common interest known as the state of Israel, each community would have very little to do with other communities – similar or not. I was more part of a community than part of a nation and I yearned for more.

Not long after moving to the settlement of Karnei Shomron my convictions were put to the test as I was not overly pleased with the local education system and my first instinct (as an American) was to start a new school. I mean – isn’t the best way to improve something to foster competition? I started discussing with some friends and just as the idea started to gain some momentum, it dawned on me that it was this exact behavior I resented in the U.S. and here I was guilty of doing the same. If in this tiny settlement our kids couldn’t all learn together under one roof, how could we expect to live as one with the rest of our nation 20 kilometers due west? I thought: “Wouldn’t it be better to try and improve the existing system rather than replace it”? So instead, I focused my energies on working within the system and became the head of the Parent Teachers Association for 10 years spending countless hours of my own time on this and thank God with great success.

The same logic holds true for the Likud. When searching for a political home, I was looking for a party that was the closest to my ideology, while at the same time representative to the best extent possible of the various segments of our wonderful nation: Sfardim and Ashkenazim, Tzabbarim and Olim (not just American), Newer-Settlers (e.g., Yesha) and Older-Settlers (e.g., Tel-aviv and Petach Tikva), Men and women, Doctors, Professors and taxi drivers, Jews and non-Jews that are true supporters of Israel – like the Druze (MK Ayoub kara from the Likud is a stronger supporter of the Land of Israel than many of our “own”), and so forth and so forth.

The Likud was the only party that even came close as its charter was actually quite good and its human capital matched the list described above. With that in mind, I joined as a rank and file member (around the year 2000) and have since taken part in many important internal votes including the one against the 2005 Disengagement (the one Sharon chose to ignore, though it was still important that we won), while most of my friends simply watched from the sidelines.

Now don’t get me wrong, the Likud I joined was far from ideal – but here too, my thought was “let’s fix from within and not try and replace with something new and sectorial,” and fix we did. With tremendous efforts from thousands of people just like you and me who are loyal to our land, we made a change. It wasn’t easy and it took a long time – but if the current Likud list is any indication we are succeeding beyond our wildest dream. The only way to explain how the superb list of Likud Knesset candidates we currently have, ranked as high as they did, in many cases ousting Likud “legends” the likes of Meridor and Begin – is to understand that the “Amcha” or everyday Likud members on the other side of the green line became convinced that we (“the settlers”) are interested in a real partnership and decided to give “our guys” a chance. Let’s face it – there are simply not enough Likud members in Judea and Samaria to have achieved these results on our own. To not vote Likud now would not only run counter to my convictions, but would be interpreted by these same very same party members and partners as dubious and dishonest, ruining in the long run all we have managed to achieve.

As of this week, it’s no longer just another fringe campaign: the drive to apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria – all or parts thereof – is now a bona-fide, full-blown national drive, with the support of government ministers, Knesset Members and candidates, academics, and members of the media. This became abundantly clear on Tuesday night in Jerusalem, when more than 1000 people  crowded into a 900-seat Jerusalem hall – after the original location was abruptly changed – for the Third Annual Conference on the Application of Israeli Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria (Yesha).

Organized by Women in Green, and co-sponsored by the Jewish Press (JewishPress.com), the conference dealt with specific and practical methods by which to actually get the sovereignty ball moving and thus prevent the formation of a Palestinian state.

Talk of a two-state solution, while widely prevalent, is largely irrelevant. It was Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech at Bar Ilan University in 2009 that gave the concept new life, and it specifically emphasized that Israel would agree only to a demilitarized Arab state in parts of Judea and Samaria. This being an arrangement that both Fatah and Hamas have categorically turned down, an agreed-upon two-state solution can basically be dismissed.

What will take its place?

What will ensure that active and passive preparations on the ground for such an eventuality do not continue? The answer, according to an increasing portion of the Israeli public, is Israeli sovereignty — at least in part of the areas in question. At the conference, Women in Green co-chair Yehudit Katzover presented the results of a new survey, in which 73.2% of right-wing voters (some 56% of the population)–-not including residents of Yesha or hareidim–support sovereignty. The conference speakers essentially addressed three major issues: 1) How to bring about the desired sovereignty; 2) what will be the status of the Arabs living in Judea and Samaria; and 3) whether to push for full sovereignty over all of Yesha or to work gradually.

The Slow but Sure Approach

Three Likud members – Cabinet Minister Yuli Edelstein, MK Ze’ev Elkin, who is widely expected to be named a Cabinet minister following the upcoming elections, and MK Yariv Levine – supported what Elkin called the “salami approach.”  We must learn from the Palestinians, he said, “take what we can now, and discuss the rest later.”

He said that we are “hopefully” now entering a new era in terms of Judea and Samaria: “For the first 25 years after the Six Day War, the ‘status quo approach’ reigned; beautiful Jewish communities were built, but the status of the areas did not change. Since 1993, we began a period of withdrawals – Oslo, then the Disengagement, etc. – and it is now clear to most that this has brought us less security, and increased demands from the PA… We must now begin to take proactive steps to improve our situation, and begin to apply sovereignty, or aspects thereof, on whatever areas we can at any given moment. It will not be easy, but it is necessary.”

The “This Is our Land” Approach

Others demanded full sovereignty now; coincidentally or not, they are not currently in the governing coalition. MK Aryeh Eldad said that Israeli law must be immediately imposed on all of Yesha, and Likud Knesset candidate Moshe Feiglin called upon the Israeli public to internalize the idea that “This Is our Land” – the name of the grass-roots movement he founded 20 years ago – and that sovereignty is the only solution. Popular thinker Caroline Glick echoed her position of the last conference, saying then that sovereignty, whether complete or partial, will cost us the same in terms of international opposition, “so why pay full price for half a job?”
Former MK Elyakim HaEtzni added that Arab autonomy leading to statehood is catastrophic, but that autonomy under the framework of full Israeli sovereignty in Yesha is the desirable way to go.

Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, running for Knesset on the Jewish Home ticket, quoted the Y’hi khvodparagraph in the Morning Prayers, in which the verse citing God’s choice of the Land of Israel precedes His choice of the people of Israel. And regarding the Arab minority living in our midst, he said that Yehoshua Bin Nun dealt with the same issue by simply insisting that they rid themselves of idol-worship and recognize Jewish control over the land. “This must be our clear red line,” Rabbi Ben-Dahan emphasized: “the recognition that there can be no foreign rule in Eretz Yisrael.”

Caroline Glick also cited Yehoshua Bin Nun, and said that his demand to forego all idol-worship has a parallel today: “They must agree to stop all terrorism.”

Citizenship – or Expulsion?

The issue of Yesha Arabs under Israeli sovereignty was thoroughly explored in an hour-long panel discussion concluding the conference. Glick took the most extreme approach: “All of them should be offered the right to apply to the Interior Ministry for citizenship. Based on past experience in Jerusalem and the Golan [which have both been annexed - HF], we know that most of the Arabs will not apply. And even if they would all become citizens, the Jewish population in Israel would still retain a two-third majority, buttressed by growing birth and Aliyah rates. Nothing is simple, but we need not fear taking the bold steps that are necessary; we have come to inherit our land!”

Dr. Martin Sherman, founder of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, former Tel Aviv University lecturer, and former ministerial adviser to Yitzhak Shamir’s government – said there is no choice but to compensate the Arab residents and have them take up residence elsewhere. “Ultimately, there can be only one sovereignty between the Jordan and the Mediterranean – and we’d better make sure it’s ours, not theirs.” Dr. Sherman elaborated that Arab self-rule won’t work, because they have no loyalty to the Israeli government overseeing the autonomy, and that granting full rights would also fail because “two peoples who do not share basic nationalist cultures can simply not live together over time.” Therefore, he concluded, “the only option that remains is compensation/evacuation,” a solution first proposed by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose name was not mentioned at the conference.

Wanted: Israeli TV

Dr. Mordechai Kedar of Bar Ilan University, who was asked to speak on the expected Arab reaction to Israeli sovereignty, said, “They haven’t accepted the results of the War of Independence, do we expect them to accept the results of the Six Day War?” Both the Arab world and the international community, Dr. Kedar predicted, can be expected to react moderately to strongly to a declaration of Israeli sovereignty. Part of the solution, he suggested, lies in launching an Israeli satellite TV channel for the general worldwide public. “It would not cost more than $15 million a year,” he assessed.

Co-chairs Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katzover, as well as other speakers, emphasized that the recent report submitted by the Justice Edmond Levy committee, outlining the legal foundation for Jewish settlement in Yesha, must be adopted: “It must take its proper place in open governmental discourse, and action must be taken in accordance with it.” MK Eldad, in a not-subtle dig at the Jewish Home party, demanded that all future coalition partners resign from the next Netanyahu government if the Levi Report is not legislated into law within three months.

The Day Will Come! All the speakers agreed on two things: a Palestinian state would be catastrophic for the State of Israel and must be avoided at all costs, and the very fact of the conference and its success is a great step forward towards applying Jewish sovereignty over all of Israel. In the inspiring words of an unusually uplifting Latma musical skit produced especially for the Conference, “The day will come – it must come –  when only truth will be spoken, and all the world will say, without apology: This is Israel’s land – Israel’s!”