Move to the Galilee

Yair Lapid

One of the most well known arguments advanced by settlers is that it doesn’t matter whether they would be evacuated or not – after all, once the struggle for Judea and Samaria ends, the battle for the Galilee will get underway (they also really like to add “and the battle for Jaffa as well” in order to scare the Tel Avivians, but it’s just a case of hilltop humor.) Based on figures published by the Central Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, this argument is well founded. At this point already, 53.1 percent of Galilee residents are Arab, while only 46.9 percent are Jewish, and the gap has been growing consistently for a decade now.



Those concerned about Israel’s existence as a Jewish state cannot ignore this trend. In order to change it we need a very specific type of Israelis: People who are not interested in living in urban centers and who prefer small communities, while being able to adjust to new places. We need people who love mountain air as fresh as a Galilee-made cabernet wine and know how to battle our indifferent government establishment, which insists on ignoring the demographic problem at its doorstep.



The problem, of course, is that such Israelis are not commonplace around here. In fact, at this time there is only one place where we can find them – at the settlements. There alone we have about 250,000 people who have the ability, with one swift gesture, to turn from being a national problem to being a solution.



The “politics of settlement,” as it was referred to by the late Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, must move house. Not only because of the problems and disagreement it stirs in its current location, but also because we need it much more urgently elsewhere.



Real Zionist challenge
The settlers arrived at Judea and Samaria because they felt – whether justifiably or not – that they were called up for a mission by the State. This explains a large part of their sense of insult these days, when it appears to them that this very same State treats them as if they were a nuisance. The proposed “evacuation-compensation” law in fact calls on them to trade their values for money. This is precisely what many of them think about the value system of the new Israeliness.



It would be better for us to offer them something that is more suitable for them: A real Zionist challenge that is incredibly vital for the maintenance of a Jewish majority, along with a three-bedroom house overlooking a spring.



If they agree, the Galilee would never become the next issue. If they refuse, at least we would know what really matters to them. The only question left is whether we still know how to make such offers.