“Behold, Hashem your God has given you the Land. Go up and inherit it, as Hashem the God of your forefathers has spoken to you. Do not fear and do not be afraid.” (Devarim 1:21)

We must be unequivocal about the rights of Jews to live everywhere in the land of Israel and bring real prosperity to all her peace-loving citizens.

This begins with our language.

We do not live in the defunct “West Bank” of Jordan, but in historic Judea and Samaria.

We must also be clear about the fact that reports of “settler violence” in the international media are consistently based on misinformation, fabrication, and/or Arab incitement and violence to provoke a Jewish response. They are propaganda which we should not disseminate or mimic in our media without checking sources.

Such reporting is ultimately designed to delegitimize Jewish life in Israel, and particularly in Judea and Samaria – the cradle of Jewish civilization and the backdrop of every story in the Book of Genesis and much of Tanach.

It is also the alarmed response of our enemies to the new Jewish farms and communities that have been built in Judea and Samaria over the past two and a half years.

Israel’s detractors will never acknowledge what we must say without stuttering:  Jewish settlement – a word Israel’s founders used proudly – brings progress, security and well-being for all the peace-seeking citizens of our country.

Dismantling or preventing Jewish life anywhere in Israel creates a vacuum which leads to terrorism.

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We recently spent the most uplifting Shabbat in our son and daughter-in-law’s house in Tzur Misgabi, a 920-meter high hilltop community above the yishuvim of Eastern Gush Etzion.

From the macrame swing on their porch, I imbibed alternating grey, blue, lavender, and purple vistas all the way to the Dead Sea.

From the same spot at night, I took in the endless sea of lights to the North that is Jerusalem, and the thin, bright skyline of Jordan, to the East.

I watched my grandchildren, barefoot and occasionally naked, run out to share a moment with the goat and chickens, keeping a safe distance from the guard dog.

I rested in the beautiful Carlebach-style tefilla Friday night, enjoying the scent of the new wooden ceiling of their shul, letting the harmonies wash over me and my end-of-week tiredness be replaced by gratitude and serenity.

I sang along with the exuberant young men circling the bima, many with peyot and knitted kipot, with children on their shoulders and infants in their arms.

We enjoyed a kiddush of homemade creamed herring, shnaps, cheesecakes, cookies and melon platters with 30 families, including scores of children, in their self-built shul, where the buzz was about the bathrooms installed just last week

And then after the tefilla,  Asher and a group of guys walked off to dip in a natural water hole five minutes away.

Shabbat lunch in Asher and Sarah’s home was with six young families whose conversations, divrei torah, l’chaims and singing lasted late into the afternoon.

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We watched Asher build his house with his own hands, assisted by other young Jewish builders from the area, who continue to help one another complete their homes. Tzur Misgabi is powered completely by solar energy, and by the resourcefulness, dedication and courage of 30 young families committed to living traditional Jewish lives while protecting and developing the Judean hills.

Tzur Misgabi was founded right after the October 7th Hamas massacres, when most of the Bedouin residents of the area fled their homes fearing Israeli retaliation.  IDF reservists found detailed infiltration maps of the nearby yishuvim in these homes, and plans for continued terror attacks against Jews in Gush Etzion.

Then, Hamas was in all these Bedouin enclaves, but no more. Today when I give rides to people from neighboring Pnei Kedem or Meitzad, they say how much more secure they feel now and how quiet the area has become because Jewish families are living on this hill, versus Bedouins, who initially tried to return.  For the past many years, the latter were involved in stealing livestock, robberies and violence against local Jews, and their goals were not peaceful.

Tremendous vigilance is still required, and fortunately the IDF sees the new farms and hilltop communities that were built in Judea and Samaria since October 7th as a critical strategic asset for Israel, preventing terror in all parts of the country.

The young people sustaining these communities are also the tikkun of the Ten Spies in Sefer Bamidbar – all learned, influential leaders of our nascent nation – who feared going into the Land, and doomed an entire generation to die in the desert.  Only Joshua, Caleb and the women of that generation had faith and courage, and did not cry that night, the first Tisha B’Av in history.  Only they merited to conquer and settle Eretz Yisrael.

In reversal of the life’s work of our foremothers and fathers, and subsequently that of our nation’s founders and precious soldiers, on Tisha B’av 2005, our country began the forced expulsions and destruction of 25 flourishing Jewish communities in Gush Katif and Northern Shomron. This stupefying moral crime – which led directly to the Second Lebanon War and eventually October 7th – was complete capitulation to Arab scud missiles and terror.  As if land was ever the reason behind the Jihadist War against Israel. As if self-destruction would somehow appease the enemies of Israel – who hate her not because of what she does, but because of who she is.

Our comfort has been long in coming, but I feel it in the families of Tzur Misgabi and in the rebuilding of Northern Shomron and the hills of Judea and Samaria  – and hopefully soon Gaza.

Our government still hesitates to declare Sovereignty over all Israel, which will allow for the peace-seeking non-Jewish citizens of our land to live with us, and for the others to be brought to justice under law.  And which will eliminate, once and for all, the pretention that the Islamic fundamentalist war against Israel and the West is about land, versus our very lives.

But after what we have endured, our nation is wide awake, and it is not waiting. We are blessed by a clear-valued generation of Jews who understand that only vibrant, joyful Jewish life throughout our land, as we were commanded to establish so long ago, will bring lasting peace to Israel and beyond.

Only when we respect ourselves, and reclaim our spiritual, moral and historical inheritance,  based on true justice, will our enemies know their place and withdraw.  We saw this after 1967.  We saw this in the tunnels of Gaza, where Sasha Trofonov realized that his captors looked upon him with awe, because he is a Jew.

We must live up to our identities. We must learn Tanach,  create proud Jewish life in all parts of our land, serve, sing and celebrate together, and have Eretz Yisrael be the factor that unites us, rather than divides us.

The world is waiting.