NURIT GREENGER: ISRAEL’S REVENANTS
The Revenants
The definition of the word revenant is: a person who returns after a lengthy absence, or someone who has returned from the dead.The origin of the word revenant is French, from present participle of revenir, meaning to return. (Participle is a word formed from a verb and used as an adjective or a noun.)
The word revenant was first known to have been used in 1818.The Jewish Nation is a revenant nation.
The Jews have returned to the Land of Israel, after lengthy absence, several times, thus the name revenant is the most appropriate for any Jew living in the land of Israel.
The Babylonian empire, under the ruling of Nebuchadnezzar II, conquered and occupied the Kingdom of Judea between 597-586 BC. In 586 BC, the Babylonian army, under the commandment of Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem and exiled the Jews to Babylon, mostly, the middle class and above Jewish population.
The exiled Jews in Babylon, the first known Diaspora, never lost their affinity for Jerusalem and their faith. According to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, in 538 BC, approximately seven decades after they were expelled from their Homeland, the Jews in Babylon were allowed to return to the Land of Israel. Cyrus the Great, the ruler of the Persian Empire then, issued the Cyrus’s declaration, the decree that granted the Jews the right to worship their God in Jerusalem, in some form of an autonomy. Around 50,000 Jews made the first – Aliyah – revenir, to the Land of Israel, and most of the exiled Jews chose to remain in Babylon. During the next 110 years to follow, since the decree of Cyrus the Great, Jewish deportees returned to Judea- returned to Zion. These Jews were the first Jewish revenants.
These Jewish revenants re-established the city of Jerusalem and rebuilt the Second Temple at the original site of King Solomon’s First Temple, which had remained a devastated heap during the approximately 70 years of exile. Work resumed at approximately 521 BCE, under the Persian King Darius (Ezra 5) and was completed during the sixth year of his reign in 518/517 BCE. Around 19 BCE, Harod the Great renovated and expanded the Second Temple.
On 70 CE, under Titus, the Romans conquered and destroyed Jerusalem, and burned the Second Temple.
When the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. the second exile of Jews from Judea began. The Jewish people were soon to be scattered throughout the earth knows to be the Diaspora. For the next 2000 years the Jews would have no authority in their land their God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. However during most of the 2000 years Second Exile there have always been some Jews living in the Land of Israel, mostly in Jerusalem. Although most of the Jewish nation was in exile from its land, the Jews in the Diaspora never forget their Jerusalem.
Aliyah- revenir of Jewish revenants is a basic tenet of the Zionism ideology. The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile. Sizable scale of Jewish immigration to Eretz Israel and later the State of Israel began in 1882. Aliyah- revenir of Jewish revenants to the State of Israel still takes place today when Jews arrive to love in the State of Israel from all four corners of the world.
In 1948 the nascent Jewish state, comprised of 600,000 revenants, had to fight for its survival when, on May 15, one day after the creation of the State of Israel, the Arab armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon invaded the new Jewish state. Israel won the war but lost a portion of its land to the Arabs. The Gaza strip and Sinai remained under Egypt’s control and Judea and Samaria and a part of Jerusalem – the old city – fell into the hands of Transjordan. For nineteen years Israel was missing several of her limbs, which, legally and according to International law, belong to the Jewish State.
In 1967 Israel was compelled to defend itself again from Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The result of the Six Day War was that Israel gained her land back, the land the Arabs were holding to, illegally for two decades.
Jewish revenants began settling their newly gained land in Judea and Samaria and Gaza. While the State of Israel did the unthinkable and made Gaza Judenrein, a growing number of Jewish revenants are inhabiting Judea and Samaria.
Unfortunately, the Arabs are still harboring one goal in mind, which is to capture the State of Israel and destroy it. Along this ominous goal, they have been demonizing and delegitimizing the state of Israel in any method possible. The Arabs’ stealth jihad against Jews gained much support from the Jewish state herself. The Jewish revenants, living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, are known to be called by Israelis and Arabs alike “settlers,” which is a pejorative and dismissing term. These pioneers, who elected to inhabit the Jewish land that did not see a Jewish inhabitant for over 2000 years, are also called by the enemies of the Jews and the State of Israel, who want to see her fall, by other derogative names such as “racists,” “occupiers,” “bigots” and the like.
There are two sides to every story. The world chose to hear and narrate only one side of this story and simply refuses to acknowledge the other side of the story. This is therefore, the other side.
The derogative word “settler” has ‘occupation’ connotation attached to it. Since the French word ‘revenir’, means to come back after a long time to something that belongs to you, these revenants did just that, returned, after a lengthy absence, to their Biblical land of Judea and Samaria, which is a part and parcel of the Jewish state, Israel. Places which are mentioned in the Bible, such as Shilo, Israel’s first Capital in the Promised Land after fleeing Egypt, and where the tabernacle first stood, are resurrected and built by Jewish revenants-pioneers. Ancient Biblical names come alive again.
The Jewish people’s Land is Israel. This land was given to Abraham in an unshakeable covenant by God over 3,000 years ago. But not only according to God this land belongs to the Jews. This land was finally, legally and unanimously, returned to the Jews by the world’s nations in 1922.
Since the Jewish revenants began heading for the hills of Judea and Samaria, the State of Israel has been in a state of a confusion mode.
The Israelis signed the Oslo Accords and Camp David with terrorists who had no inclination to keep and abide by any of the terms of those agreements; the Israelis disengaged from Gaza and parts of Judea and Samaria and gave the Arabs reasons to demand they disengage from more parts of the Jewish land. These political moves had one goal in the mind of the Jews only, which is achieving peace under false pretence. Every time a so called “peace treaty” agreement was signed, Israel’s safety was reduced. It appears that Israel is forever seeking world’s approval, without finally realizing that she does not need any approval. God gave His approval to the Jews. What Israel needs is people’s fortitude, the Israeli leadership recognition of what is at stake through their judgment and decision making.
Therefore, when the media portrays the Jewish citizens of communities in Judea and Samaria, a/k/a West Bank, as fanatics and intolerant bigots, our response must be, they are simply Jewish revenants. The word “settlers” must be taken out of the lexicon and forgotten. We must end defaming the people who have made Aliyah – revenir to the land God gave the Jewish Nation. These Jewish revenants are pioneers in the land from which the Jews were illegally kept away since 1949 and it was finally returned to her Jewish owners in 1967, through a bloody war of self defense. These revenants-pioneers are principled Jews who chose to live in Judea and Samaria, along majestic aspirations and a great deal of fears of the unknown that only politics can inflict on them. (http://www.israelmuse.com/2010/08/news-videos-show-human-face-of.html)
The Other Side: The Jews of Judea and Samaria, Part 1, 2, 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDQBucm8wiU&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77tWaF9qZVk&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVTokJ0Ljco&feature=player_embedded
Take the H.O.R.S.E by its rein and say: These Jewish revenants have legal and [H]uman rights to live in the Land of Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean land; they are not [O]ccupying any land that belongs to someone else; they are not [R]acists and there are no [S]ettlements; there are simply Jewish towns and villages in Judea and Samaria.
Change the lexicon, change the future of the State of Israel.
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