Netanyahu Vows to Keep Every Jewish (and Arab) Settlement because the “nonsense” of uprooting Jewish communities doesn’t lead to peace
By David Lazarus
Israel Today
July 11, 2019
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu pledged on Wednesday that he will not uproot one single Jew from the biblical heartlands of Judea and Samaria. In fact, Netanyahu insisted that his government won’t uproot anyone from their homes, be they Jew or Arab.
“We shall not allow the dismantling of any settlement in any peace plan,” Netanyahu told a group of journalists and citizens gathered in Revava, a Jewish settlement in Samaria. “I also make no distinction between the settlement blocs and isolated settlement sites,” the prime minister said in Hebrew. “Every such spot is Israeli from my point of view.”
There are speculations in the Israeli media that after US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the annexation of the Golan Heights, he will expect concessions in return when he unveils the entirety of his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. Netanyahu’s statement in Samaria coming ahead of September’s general election is a clear message to his base supporters, the Palestinians and Donald Trump that if elected, he will not dismantle even the remotest Jewish settlement in the biblical heartlands.
A quick glance at a typical Jewish settlement in the biblical heartlands
Revava is an Orthodox Jewish Israeli settlement established in the spring of 1991 on a hilltop in Samaria. It is located about half-an-hour east of Petah Tikva, one of Israel’s largest cities, and close to Ariel, an Israeli city in Samaria. The first families who settled Revava lived in fourteen trailers.
In 2017, the community had a population of 2,389. Today, Revava has seven preschools/kindergartens and a daycare center for children up to age three, as well as a middle school and high school for girls. From 2001-2006, Revava had a boys’ baseball team.
The settlement’s name Revava means “ten thousand” in Hebrew. The name was chosen based on the biblical verse: “And they blessed Rebekah, and said to her: ‘Our sister, you will be the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let your seed possess the gate of those that hate them’” (Genesis 24:60).
In addition, the region in Samaria where Revava was built was allotted to the Israelite tribe of Ephraim, as described in Deuteronomy 33:17: “And they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.”
The moving song accompanying the video about Revava speaks of how small and insignificant we are to be honored with the precious grace that God has bestowed upon us. At the local Messianic congregation where I worship, we often sing this song at our Shabbat services.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I am sure Trump’s plan will call for Israel to abandon some of the settlements, especially the isolated settlement sites.
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