A bone of 'contention'

A bone of 'contention' Haim Shine The house adjacent to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, which was paid for in full, has been evacuated. The patriarchs, who have waited for 2,000 years, will have to wait a little longer for their new neighbors to get authorization from the Judea and Samaria Civil Administration to move in. The house in question has been dubbed the "house of contention." Some have called the state of Israel the "land of contention" ever since the Jews began returning to it in the second half of the 19th century. Israel is independent, strong and thriving – that can be called a land of contention. Anyone who is familiar with history knows that the Jews are a people of contention, and have been for thousands of years. However, many Jews have grown tired of years-long contention. They converted and forsook God, "the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jeremiah 2:13). Other Jews courageously carried the torch, withstanding hatred and contention, and passed it from generation to generation. It is thanks to them that we have preserved our identity as Jews and were lucky enough, after thousands of years of suffering, to see the land of Israel resurrected - the historical Jewish homeland was liberated and holy Jerusalem was rebuilt. The accusation of "public disorder" has dogged the Jews for many generations. Everywhere Jews have lived, they were a threat to public order. Even these days, Jews living in the heart of Tel Aviv are disturbing the world's public order: Many people believe that if Tel Aviv did not exist, the Iranians would have no need for a nuclear bomb, and global oil prices would be fantastically low. For these people, there is no difference between Tel Aviv's luxury towers and the modest house of contention in Hebron. The return to Zion after 2,000 years of exile changed the rules of the game in global Jewish history. It was a phenomenon never before witnessed in human history – a dead language was revived; an entire people that was valued less than dung established a powerful army and cutting-edge technology. We did all of this to avoid being blamed by the world for public disorder. It is painful to hear the Judea and Samaria Civil Administration, which is subordinate to the Israeli defense establishment, exploit this claim about public disorder. A body that cannot enforce public order in a place where Jews legally purchase land will not be able to protect Jews' right to live in Jerusalem, when the time comes. Most of the Palestinian residents of Hebron have come to terms with the fact that there are Jews who live among them. The moment the Palestinian residents of Hebron realized that the Jews would not tolerate another massacre like the 1929 Hebron massacre (the killing of 67 Jews in Hebron, then part of the British Mandate of Palestine, by Arabs incited to violence by rumors that Jews were massacring Arabs) they reached the right conclusion: that reality is stronger than any unbridled incitement. It is only the State Prosecutor's Office and the Civil Administration that have yet to understand that the Jews have returned to Judea and Samaria for ever and ever, to build and be built. The public storm surrounding the "house of contention" in Hebron was not a conflict between the Jews resettling there and the so-called Palestinians. It was an internal Jewish dispute between the Israeli majority – which feels a connection to its national heritage – and a minority that feels that it can change the course of Jewish history and make the Jews the punching bag of a cruel and alienated world, within the tiny 1967 borders. Some of the world's most deranged individuals are concentrated in the Middle East, directly surrounding the state of Israel. Passover is the festival of freedom and represents a noble desire to emancipate ourselves from the will of others. Let us hope that this Passover we will be able to deliver ourselves from the self-imposed enslavement created by our national inferiority complex. http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1682