Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, quoted in 2007 by Jerold S. Auerbach, justifying control
Even in secular Israel, it was a moment of revelation. The Six-Day War seemed to mark the fulfillment of Israel's Jewish destiny. By the end of that momentous week, as the Israeli Army swept north to Nablus, east to Jericho, and south to Hebron, a soldier marveled, "The whole of the Promised Land is ours."
Not only had the war obliterated threatening geographical boundaries; at least momentarily, it closed the spiritual abyss that had long separated secular Zionists from religious Jews.
No Israelis were more deeply moved by this encounter, or galvanized by it, than a small group of religious Zionists who had studied together in Jerusalem. Just three weeks before the war, they had heard their beloved Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook mournfully recounting the holy places that still lay outside the borders of Israel.
Then he suddenly cried out: "Where is our Hebron? Have we forgotten it? And where is our Shechem? And our Jericho - will we forget them?"
of the west bank without responsibility, as Rabbi Brian Walt described 5 years later in 2012 [bold text added for emphasis],
Another dramatic example of this policy are the regulations that revoke Palestinian residency for Palestinians who leave the country for a few years. By the time of the Oslo accords, Israel had revoked the residency of 140,000 Palestinians from the West Bank.
Gideon Levy writes: “In other words 14% of West Bank residents who dared to go abroad had their right to return to Israel and live here denied forever. In other words, they were expelled from their land and their homes. In other words: ethnic cleansing.”
He writes; “Anyone who says “it’s not apartheid” is invited to reply: Why is an Israeli allowed to leave his country for the rest of his life, and nobody suggests that his citizenship be revoked, while a Palestinian, a native son, is not allowed to do so? Why is an Israeli allowed to marry a foreigner and receive a residency permit for her, while a Palestinian is not allowed to marry his former neighbor who lives in Jordan? Isn’t that apartheid? Over the years I have documented endless pitiful tragedies of families that were torn apart, whose sons and daughters were not permitted to live in the West Bank or Gaza due to draconian rules – for Palestinians only.”
Israel recognizes that many Palestinians will not leave but it hopes to contain them in four disconnected Palestinian cantons over which it will exert maximum control and have minimal responsibility. This is the situtation Israel has created in Gaza and this is the intention for the West Bank. This is exactly what was called a Bantustan in South Africa, an area where Blacks seemingly had indep[en]dence and autonomy but in fact were totally controlled by the White South African government.
Zionism has become a movement that displaces Palestinians and privileges Jews. The problem here is much deeper than demography; it is a problem of ethics. Political Zionism contradicts what we hold as the sacred values of Judaism and the lessons of Jewish history. Judaism has been fused with Zionism and we need a Judaism and Jewish identity without political Zionism.
, to keep Jewish holy sites like Shechem and Jericho as well as Palestinian cities Hebron, Jericho and Nablus, actually in the west bank (part of what should be Palestine), within Israel.
In 2017 Jerold S. Auerbach's reference to Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook keeping all Jewish religious sites under Israeli control, even if in the West Bank (Palestine), is being amplified by a June 5-15, 2017 speaking tour paid for by FIDF (Friends of the IDF) as reported in the May 18, 2017
Washington Jewish Week that was aggregated from JTA.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – David Rubinger’s iconic photograph of three paratroopers at the Western Wall is the defining image of the 1967 Six-Day War.
The men in the photo — Dr. Yitzhak Yifat, Tzion Karasenti and Chaim Oshri — have proudly served as symbols of the historic Israeli victory for the past five decades. But in an interview with JTA, they said the war for them was just as much about loss.
“To liberate the Kotel was something amazing,” Yifat told JTA, referring to the Western Wall. “But we never celebrated. What was there to celebrate? We had lost many of our friends.”
Between June 5 and 15, in honor of the Six-Day War’s 50th anniversary, the three former paratroopers, now in their 70s, will re-create Rubinger’s photo in their first-ever tour of the United States. the tour, sponsored by Friends of the IDF, will stop at Jewish communities and other locations in the Cleveland, Detroit, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston and Baltimore areas. They will also recount some of the sacrifices that were made in the battle for Jerusalem.
This week all three spoke to JTA at Tel Aviv University in a spirited four-way conversation arranged by Friends of the IDF.
Soldiers in the "iconic" David Rubinger 1967 photo, on a speaking tour paid for by FIDF (Friends of the IDF) 50 years later, may not have studied with Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook. Former Camera .org advisory board member Jerold S. Auerbach conflated the three photographed soldiers, if they were "secular Zionists," with religious Jewish and Israeli citizen IDF soldiers.
Not only had the war obliterated threatening geographical boundaries; at least momentarily, it closed the spiritual abyss that had long separated secular Zionists from religious Jews.
The end of the JTA article quotes Dr. Yitzhak Yifat to describe his "ambivalence" about continued rule over the West Bank (and Gaza by control of movement of people and goods AKA occupation) while insisting on Israeli control of all of Jerusalem.
….
While Yifat has publicly expressed some ambivalence about Israel’s rule over Palestinians who live in the territories it took in 1967, he said he had no doubt that Israel must retain all of Jerusalem.
“We fought and lost so many friends to unite Jerusalem for the Jewish world,” he said. “There’s no going backwards.”
Dr. Yitzhak Yifat's "ambivalence" echoes Israeli high school military service refusers supported in the USA at refuser.org, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants of cfpeace.org developing a culture of nonviolent coexistence and the brave dissenting soldiers in Breaking the Silence breakingthesilence.org.il or the MIT academic project Jerusalem 2050.
Permanent Israeli control of Jerusalem, implied by Dr. Yifat, apparently includes the Jerusalem municipal boundary expansions and Jerusalem light rail that connects to settlements. The Jerusalem 5800 (2050 in Gregorian Christian calendar 5800 Jewish calendar) project summarizes [paywall link] a plan for permanent Israeli control of Jerusalem that continues Jewish religious and Israeli citizenship privilege (in freedom of movement of people and goods) as well as being a precedent for Dr. Yitzhak Yifat's quote 4 years later. The Jerusalem 5800 project was developed by an early investor in Skype who probably profited from Microsoft's buyout of Skype. Normalizing occupation was a 'next project' of the 'serial entrepreneurship' of Mr. Bermeister.
The plan has the backing of Kevin Bermeister, a leading philanthropist and technological innovator. In fact, it’s his brainchild.
From Sydney, Australia, Bermeister is the founder of Brilliant Digital Entertainment Inc., as well as one of the founding investors in Skype.
Said Bermeister of his plan: “This will produce a higher quality of life for the city’s residents and serve as a pillar to build lasting peace for the entire region.”
copy and paste from article about Jerusalem 5800 normalized occupation of East Jerusalem
January 4, 2013 By Maayan Jaffe
Economics and prosperity speak to everyone.
That is the message of about a dozen city planners in Jerusalem, who are working together to transform the city landscape by the year 2050. They call the project Jerusalem 5800 for the Hebrew year that roughly translates to 2050.
According to Jerusalem 5800 Director Ziva Glanz, the project was founded about two years ago as a private initiative to enhance the present and future city of Jerusalem and the lives of its residents. Through proper urban planning, the team plans to uncover Jerusalem’s innate potential as a true world city and a tourist destination.
“It is the first plan to include projected statistics and proposals up to the year 2050, making it the only long-term plan and the largest collection of plans ever compiled for the city,” said Glanz.
The crux of the initiative lies with the notion that tourism to the Middle East will increase tenfold in the coming years, and Jerusalem must be poised to accept those visitors.
“Tourism trends show … that as baby boomers age … tourism numbers are growing. They also show that … tourism trends are leading toward emerging markets with a strong focus on areas of spiritual and cultural tourism,” Glanz explained. “The Middle East in general is set to be one of the fastest-growing markets. … Jerusalem is very much at the religious and cultural center.”
The United Nations World Tourism Organization forecasts the number of tourists who travel internationally will double to approximately 1.6 billion by 2020; Jerusalem 5800 projects 12 million tourists in Israel by 2050. (For current tourism statistics, see related box, “Who Is Visiting Israel.”)
Glanz said tourists currently don’t like to stay in the Holy City. The roads are congested, and there are minimal mid-level accommodations available. This robs the city of low-hanging resources that Jerusalem 5800 hopes to capture, improving the 38 percent poverty level in the city by adding jobs specifically geared toward trained but unskilled (or without a degree) labor.
First on the improvement platform: Jerusalem transportation.
“Access to the Old City will need to be through an underground ‘metro,’” Glanz contended during a recent interview with the JT. She said many make the uniformed assumption that this metro would harm important antiquities and holy burial grounds. This, she said, is not the case.
“Due to the topography and hilly nature of Jerusalem, the bedrock level of Jerusalem is often only a dozen meters below today’s street level. … With a simple elevator shaft, you can reach the bedrock level and create … a subway system,” she said.
This new system will work off the assumption — like New York City — that the suburbs are essential for a thriving urban hub. Jerusalem 5800 planners are working with the surrounding city councils. One idea recently posed was to create the “Gates of Jerusalem;” physical gates over highways would mark the entrance into Jerusalem from suburbs like Mevaseret Zion, Ramot, Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion.
[Maale Adumim is and Gush Etzion is a block of multiple West Bank settlements]
Other transportation enhancements include new, high-quality routes from all national airports and seaports, such as a national high-speed light rail, extensive networks of buses and other public transportation, the additional of numerous highways, the expansion of existing roads and an express “super highway” that transverses the country from north to south.
A highlight: a second international airport.According to the team’s studies, Israel’s only current international airport, Ben Gurion, is expected to exceed capacity within the next five years. Jerusalem 5800 is proposing an airport in the Horkania Valley between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. A full proposal already has been submitted to the Israeli government and is currently being reviewed. The airport would enable service for up to 30 million passengers per year.
Glanz noted there are also plans to increase the number of hotel rooms from the current 9,300 to 63,000.
To offset the city’s carbon footprint, the Jerusalem 5800 plan suggests ecological construction methods to enable denser building and rooftop gardens and parks. A main ring of parks, green corridors and paths, incorporating remnants of the city’s biblical heritage — excavations, ancient agricultural farms, historic roads, temples, gravesites — would surround and be distributed throughout the city.
Impossible?
It seems more like fantasy than reality, Glanz admitted, since no long-term city plan for Jerusalem has been put forth and carried out since 1959. The most recent attempt, the Safdie Plan, was initiated by the Israel Land Administration and the Jerusalem Development Authority during the term of Ehud Olmert as mayor of Jerusalem. It called for the construction of 20,000 housing units on undeveloped land to the west of the city. Environmentalists mobilized to have the Safdie Plan scrapped, and it was suspended by Mayor Uri Lupolianski in 2007.
Glanz does not see Jerusalem 5800 dying so easily.
Jerusalem 5800 has a team of the best city planners in all areas, including transportation, economics, environment, antiquities and conservation. It is in active communication with all government agencies, as well.
“We work in conjunction with every relevant municipal and government office, but we are not bound by the internal process and therefore have been able to accomplish in three years what it would take a governmental authority … upward of 10 years to accomplish,” Glanz said.
Furthermore, she explained, unlike previous plans, Jerusalem 5800 is divided into a number of independent projects, each of which may be proposed and adopted on its own merits.
If it all goes through, it will cost approximately $300 million in private investment per year, $7.5 billion over the course of 40 years just to complete the hotel rooms. But this is not a deterrent. The team contends that these improvements will result in net growth of the Jerusalem and Israeli economy from $178 million to $1.65 billion, 3.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
The plan has the backing of Kevin Bermeister, a leading philanthropist and technological innovator. In fact, it’s his brainchild.
From Sydney, Australia, Bermeister is the founder of Brilliant Digital Entertainment Inc., as well as one of the founding investors in Skype.
Said Bermeister of his plan: “This will produce a higher quality of life for the city’s residents and serve as a pillar to build lasting peace for the entire region.”
More favorable housing construction approvals for Jews than for Christians or Muslims in East Jerusalem to alter the religious and citizenship demographic (population) balance (create 'facts on the ground') of residents creates a Jewish demographic majority in all of Jerusalem.
Either Yifat's "ambivalence" is progress toward a two state solution based on the 1967 pre-war (1949 armistice) borders or an emerging 'land swap' that delegitimizes non-Jewish historic, cultural and religious claims on Jerusalem with the continuing precondition of security for one faith (Jews) at the expense of freedom of movement of people and goods for people of other faiths (Christians and Muslims) also known as normalized occupation.
….
While Yifat has publicly expressed some ambivalence about Israel’s rule over Palestinians who live in the territories it took in 1967, he said he had no doubt that Israel must retain all of Jerusalem.
“We fought and lost so many friends to unite Jerusalem for the Jewish world,” he said. “There’s no going backwards.”
