Atty. Elyakim Haetzni, in his criticism of the Nationality Law and the word that is missing from it: “When you read the law, you wonder if it had undergone censorship by overseers from Washington”.
The world is upside down. Instead of the “enlightened” world accepting the new Nationality Law with applause and the Right objecting to it, the opposite is happening: The Right is celebrating and the Left is grieving. How did this happen, that the two sides do not see what is missing in this law, do not see that something has fallen beneath the floor, do not see that in the Law of Jewish Nationality – the Land of Israel is missing?
The name of the state, its flag, symbol, hymn, the official calendar, holidays and days of rest are static, declarative data – like saying that 2+2 equals four. In a normal country perhaps that would be enough, but not in the Jewish State, which is – in the words of the law – “unique”. It has two key roles, from which it derives the essence of its indispensability: Aliyah and settlement. And indeed, the Nationality Law devotes two clauses to these two pillars.
Clause no. 5 of the law, under the heading “Ingathering of the Exiles”, states: “The state will be open to Jewish Aliyah and the ingathering of the exiles”.
Aficionados will perhaps not appreciate the passive wording, as if to say ‘I’m flexible, if you want to, go ahead… “and would prefer a more pro-active statement. But we will deal here with a much more severe flaw: “Aliyah and the ingathering of the exiles” – to where? ‘To the state’? “Aliyah to the Land” has been the accepted expression all the days of Zionism. What happened – why did they omit “the Land”?
This clause should be compared to the Law of Return from 1950, which declared, under the heading “the right to Aliyah”: “Every Jew has the right to immigrate to the Land”. “To the Land” – those legislators
said, all of two years after the establishment of the State! We did not yet have possession of the heart of the Land, and nevertheless, they “carved in stone” (in the eloquent words of the prime minister) the right of every Jew to immigrate to the Land of Israel.
How can the wording of these two documents be compared – the right ‘to the Land’ in contrast to ‘the state is open’? Likud and HaBayit HaYehudi Legislators – why did you change ‘Aliyah to the Promised
Land’ to the parve expression ‘the state is open’?
And from Aliyah we come to settlement. Clause no. 7 of the law, under the heading “Jewish settlement”, states: “The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value, and will act to
encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation”.
How is it that the legislators did not notice that in the expression
“development of Jewish settlement” – something is missing? Settlement
– where? In the Baron’s colonies in Argentina? We may guess, of
course, that since it says that ‘the state views’, the reference is to
settlement in the state. Whether this is so or not, someone took care
here as well, not to say in simple human language that the settlement
is in the Land of Israel and he preferred to leave it hanging in the
air.
Say: and the connection “to this Land”, which has been sanctified for
thousands of years with blood and tears, where is that? And what
happened to “the homeland”, which was changed to “home state”? Have
you, the legislators of the national camp, joined the radical Left,
which has erased the “Land” of Israel and converted it to the “state”
of Israel, to the point where even the weather is “in the state”? For
them, the wording of this law is a realization of their wet dream, but
for you?!
Even in the Law’s first clause, Para (3) – “Foundational Principals”,
the trend is obvious: “The realization of the right to national
self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish
People”.
I am writing these words in Kiryat Arba-Hevron, which is located, as
we know, in the Land of Israel, and in a place that is not bad, but
outside the State of Israel. Can it be that here, in the City of the
Forefathers, Jewish national self-determination is not realized?
One might think that someone went over the text with a microscope and
eradicated every trace of the Land of Israel, apart from the laconic
statement about where the state originated: “The Land of Israel is the
historic homeland of the Jewish People, and the State of Israel was
established in this place”.
The systematic omission of “the Land” from here on, for the rest of
the law, sends the message that after the state was established,
Jewish self-determination has occurred and is occurring only within
its borders. This gives rise to the conclusion that the rest of the
territory between the Land and the state – is available for someone
else.
The Nationality Law clearly expresses a minimalistic and hostile
interpretation of the key sentence in both the Balfour Declaration and
the document of the Mandate: “A national home for the Jewish People in
the Land of Israel”. Our enemies have always claimed that the
intention was to some territory in the Land, not to the entire
territory… Is this also the message of the “right wing government”?
The sword of Damocles hovers over us in the form of Trump’s “deal of
the century”. The “trio” – Kushner, Greenblatt and Friedman plus Nikki
Haley – just published an article for CNN in which they repeated the
clarification that there is nothing in the recognition of Jerusalem as
the capital of Israel that prevents the division of the city and their
plan will also include “the legitimate needs of the Palestinian and
the region” (in other words, every Arab country), and concluded with a
hint of bad news: “No one will be totally satisfied with the plan that
we are offering…”
Netanyahu politely complies with the “trio’s” instructions to scale
back the building in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria to the minimum,
to allow the establishment of a Palestinian state on at least 90% of
the territory of Judea and Samaria, meaning – also in the greater part
of Area C. Recently, there have been various cases when Netanyahu’s
people have clearly admitted that they are waiting for instructions
from Trump’s team. When the plan is published, Netanyahu will surely
adopt it for the sake of maintaining friendly relations with Trump.
Just as he adopted the “two states” plan because of Obama’s hostility.
When you read the Nationality Law against this backdrop the thought
arises that perhaps it has also undergone censorship by the overseers
from Washington.
If, one day, the legislators open their eyes and see that they are
bringing upon us a law that will result in the division of the Land,
Bar-Ilan 2.0, only one path will be open for them to repair the
damage: the State of Israel’s application of sovereignty over Judea
and Samaria.
Only in this way will the Jewish nation have both a state and the Land.
If your non elected Knesset member’s represented the constituents then all the B S nutunyahoo does would go down the kazzi where it belongs. O for the days of old when a leader led and was not a sheep to unc sam.