Dear Fellow Activists, amv"sh
I was at this AFSI meeting of activists featuring Yehudit Katzover and Nadia Matar. The spirit of these women and of this cause reflects the fighting uplifiting spirit of Hebron. Nadia was so involved in her message of activism that she had to be asked by a member of the audience to whom to write out checks. I CAN NOT THINK OF A BETTER, MORE AUTHENTIC CAUSE FOR ERETZ YISROEL! They can definitely use the money!
When Rob Muchnick asked her to describe the feeling of being beaten up literally and of being arrested for her activism Nadia showed her determination that the struggle was far beyond these temporary setbacks and that a true activist does not give up! In keeping with her humor she replied, "If you have never been arrested then perhaps you need to work a bit harder on your activism. Having suffered back problems as a result from their activism, one time when they carried us away from the hilltop protest, they actually put a displaced disc back into place"
One never knows if an act of activism on a small scale will have major impact in the future to facilitate further settlement in Eretz Yisroel. She and Yehudit started small scale with saving the hilltop Beit Dagan in Efrat and now it is populated with young couples and their families. They start facts on the ground and the rest is history!
Nadia said that Gush Katif happened because we didn't stop small decrees from being implemented.
Shdema is their current struggle.
Summary of Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katzover's
speaking tour in the US
Dear Friends,
Below please find Helen Freedman's summary of our talk at the Safra synagogue in New York last Wednesday. After her summary , you will find a link to our latest must see movie on the struggle for Shdema , featuring MK Arieh Eldad, Elyakim Haetzni, Caroline Glick, Moshe Peled and others.
Yehudit Katzover, representing "The Committee for a Jewish Shdema" and I, chair of Women in Green, finished a full week of lectures and talks in the US under the title of "Why grassroots activism is so important for the future of Israel".
We spoke in Los Angeles and New York . In both places we talked about our plans and activities that involve a return to the Zionist values of love for the land of Israel by settling the land through agriculture and construction.
We pointed out that the Jewish People are in the midst of an existential struggle over the Jewish right to dwell in Zion. Enemies of Israel all over the world are trying to prevent Jews from living in Judea and Samaria, Israel's Biblical homeland . The call for a "two-state solution" i.e. for the creation of a Islamo-fascist terror State in Judea and Samaria, is a call for the destruction of the entire State of Israel. If Israel's evacuation from the Gaza strip brought Kassams and Grad missilies on Ashdod , Ashkelon and the entire Negev; it is clear that the creation of a Palestinian State in Judea and Samaria would bring havoc and destruction upon Tel Aviv and Haifa and Jerusalem.
And thus, what needs to be done to protect the State of Israel ,is for the Jewish People to strengthen its hold in Judea and Samaria by expanding the existing communities there, creating new ones, thereby raising the number of 300,000 Jews already living there to one million Jews.
We need not be apologetic about any of these plans, for Judea and Samaria are an integral part of the land of Israel and belong to the Jewish people only. We also pointed out that the previous elections have clearly proven that the majority of the Jewish people have voted for a policy of loyalty to the land of Israel and have said a clear NO to the policies of weakness and capitulation to Arab terror, which is a clear NO to the creation of a Palestinian State in Israel's Biblical Heartland.
As longtime activists we reminded our audiences that Jewish history has proven that often our political leaders need the push from the grass roots to act in the correct way. That is what happened in 1979 when a group of 13 women entered the Bet Hadassa building in Hevron and thus led to the reinstalling of Jewish life in Hebron. Something similar happened years later when ten women from Efrat and Gush Etzion fought for the Dagan hill saving it from being handed over to the PLO. Those are only two of many more examples of grass-roots activities started by few that succeeded in influencing the public and the politicians who then followed in the footsteps of the activists.
Yehudit and I described that among the many activities we are part of, today we are, together with our fellow activists, involved in saving Shdema from falling into hostile Arab hands. Shdema is an Israeli military base that was abandoned for political reasons. Situated in area C under Israeli control ,Shdema overlooks and controls the highway connecting Southern Jerusalem to Eastern Gush Etzion.
Women in Green and The committee for Shdema have been active over the past years in keeping Shdema in Jewish hands. Our goal is to establish an educational and cultural center in Shdema. The Center will offer a unique blend of spiritual and practical study programs to internalize and fulfill the Jewish and Zionist vision of settling the land of Israel. We will integrate studies of history and our Jewish heritage with "hasbara", communication skills to strengthen the love of Israel to youth and adults alike. Courses teaching practical agriculture and construction skills will promote the value of Jewish labor.
At the end of our talk we screened our latest must see short movie about our struggle for Shdema. (see link below)
After the screening of the movie the public was invited to ask questions. One of the questions asked was: "I understand the dangers of the creation of a Palestinian State- so what should Israel do to prevent the creation of such a State?".
I answered that in my eyes, before anything else, the government of Israel must abolish the Oslo Agreements, and must wipe out all terror organizations . After that we must annex Judea and Samaria. One cannot make peace with people who call for the destruction of the State of Israel and for an Islamic Jihad against all of western civilization. Let's remember that fundamentalist Islam wants to not only destroy Israel but also wants to turn Europe into Eurabia and then turn against the USA. Destroying all terror organizations by the government of Israel is thus in the interest of the entire Western World.
I added that we cannot differentiate between the Fatah, Hamas, Jihad or other terror groups. Mahmoud Abbas, the current leader of Fatah after Yasser Arafat, is as much of a terrorist as Haniye or Osama Bin laden. Must we remind our public that Mahmoud Abbas was the financier of the Munich massacre of the Israeli athletes; a man whose doctorate from Moscow university, consisted of outright Holocaust denial; a man who has for decades been a close aid to the mass murderer Yassir Arafat and an active figure in the terrorist PLO hierarchy. In the past few years too, the Fatah organization has committed numerous acts of terror against Israelis. Mahmoud Abbas frequently has said that violence must be used if diplomatic pressure does not succeed in establishing a new Arab country with mass immigration of foreign Arabs into Israel.The PA continues to act as an enabler of terrorism by teaching its children to emulate terrorists and extols murderers of Jews as heroes and role models. All those terrorist leaders must be put to trial by the State of Israel and executed, I said, as the US did to Saddam Hussein and the Allied Forces did to the heads of the Nazi regime.
Clearly I was talking about the need to bring Abbas and other terrorists to justice for crimes against the Jewish People and humanity as the job of the government of Israel and not of any private individual as some malicious emails are trying to claim through distortion and defamation.
As the past 16 years have proven, Women in Green is a non-violent grass roots organization that promotes, through education, the love of the Land of Israel and our Jewish Heritage.
Women in Green promote pride in our Jewish and Zionist values, steadfastness as to our right to our Land, and expect the government of Israel to protect the Land of Israel and the people of Israel, by fighting a uncompromising battle against Arab terrorists and their leaders. We advocate the death sentence for terrorists convicted by the State of Israel after due process in a court of law for the following reasons:
1) elementary justice (as practiced in many States in the US)
2) deterrence
3) prevention of tragic situations like the current Shalit case, where an entire country is held hostage by a terror organization. If terrorists and their leaders had been executed by the Israeli government, we would not now be subject to such blackmail by Hamas.
The fact that some people in Israel and the US want Israel to negotiate a suicidal "two-State solution" with Mahmoud Abbas, does not make him less of a terrorist and a murderer. The call to bring him to justice is as much a legitimate call as is the call to bring Osama Bin laden to justice.
Women in Green are happy that the majority of the people in Israel in the past elections have shown to believe in the same values Women in Green have been promoting for the past 16 years; values of love of the land of Israel and of our Jewish heritage.
We,extra-parliamentary activists for the land of Israel have lots of work ahead. The Israeli Left together with anti-Israeli organizations abroad, will surely try to threaten and pressure the new elected government to make concessions to the Arab enemy. It will be our duty to make sure the new government will stick to the national and Zionist values it was elected to promote.
To all the wonderful friends whom we met on our speaking tour:
it was great meeting you in person.
We especially want to thank our dear friend Alan Jacobs for organizing our trip to the US.
We also want to thank Doris Wise Montrose from the Children of the Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Los Angeles and all her wonderful friends for organizing our talk in Los Angeles.
Thank you to the wonderful families who hosted us on Shabbat. Thank you to the families who sponsored a Kiddush in Beth Jacob.
Thank you to Helen and Barry Freedman from AFSI for organizing the evening in New York.
Below please find Helen Freedman's summary and a link to the new video on Shdema.
With love for Israel,
Nadia Matar, Women in Green
Yehudit Katzover, the Committee for a Jewish Shdema
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HILLTOP HEROINES
By Helen Freedman
Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI was proud to present a dynamite duo, Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katzover, to an overflow audience at the Safra Synagogue in NYC on Wednesday night, March 18. Barry Freedman, AFSI's Executive Director, opened the program by reminding the over one hundred admirers of the "hilltop heroines" that the AFSI Chizuk missions, which have taken place twice a year since 1994, have provided many hundreds of people with the opportunity to meet the grassroots heroes and heroines represented by Nadia and Yehudit.
Yehudit Katzover told us about her experiences as an early "settler" in Kiryat Arba/Hebron in the days before running water, paved streets, and available medical facilities; however she described the joy felt by all in just being in the promised land, fulfilling the dream. In 1979, fifty years after the 1929 Arab pogrom which emptied Hebron of its Jews, Yehudit and twelve other women, along with their 45 children, "occupied" Beit Hadassah in Hebron and remained there for one year, demanding the acceptance of the return of the Jews to Hebron . They won their battle, and today Beit Hadassah is a flourishing home to many Hebron families.
Nadia Matar, co-founder of Women in Green with her mother-in-law, Ruth Matar, reminded her group of warm admirers, that the first "settlers" were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. She therefore terms all "settlers" as "inheritors", those who are fully participating in realizing the biblical promise. She decried the foolishness of pursuing the "two state solution" in the face of all the evidence exposing it as a path to Israel's destruction. Instead, Nadia injected the excitement of hope and progress in describing her activities regarding the saving of Shdema. Shdema, an abandoned Israeli military base, overlooks and controls the highway connecting the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Choma to eastern Gush Etzion. It is a vitally strategic area that must remain in Israeli hands. Every Friday morning, the Committee for Shdema, along with Members of Knesset and distinguished lay people, make their presence felt at Shdema with lectures, concerts, and study groups. Their plan is to build a Land of Israel Cultural Center at Shdema. Details can be found on the website: www.womeningreen.org. Those interested in being in Shdema on Friday, May 22, 2009 , with the AFSI Chizuk mission, coming up this May 17-26, should contact Barry Freedman at: afsi@rcn.com ; 212-828-2424; 1-800-235-3658.
AFSI is indebted to Rabbi Elie Abadie and Alisa Shams for their continuing hospitality in opening their synagogue to AFSI's lecture series. Get on the AFSI email list to learn about upcoming events at the Safra Synagogue: afsi@rcn.com .
LINK TO LATEST MOVIE ON THE STRUGGLE FOR A JEWISH SHDEMA
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