This morning, Friday May 16th tens of lovers of Israel have returned to Shdema.
As you recall, Shdema is the vacated army camp close to Har Choma, Jerusalem. At the spot , close to the road, we found today building measurements which confirm the news we had gotten that the Olmert-Livni have promised the Arabs to build a town there.
We haven't emphasized enough what madness this would be. Not only from a ideological point of view (for no Jew is allowed to give away parts of the Land of Israel) but simply from a security point of view, Shdema overlooks Har Choma and the road- thus a Arab town there would be endangering Har Choma, Gush etzion and the road.
This time we came with a tourguide, Aryeh Klein from Hevron, who gave us some new information about Shdema:
* the area of Shdema is where there was a Hasmonean fortress. Close to where the abandoned army camp is located today, ruins were found from the time of the Greek siege on the Hasmoneans. The Jews managed to burst the siege. In that battle Johanan the Hasmonean died.
During the Jordanian occupation the place was a Jordanian army base built to control the Tekoa desert. During the Six day war the Jordanian force located there fled to Jordan.
In addition to try and physically take over Shdema like we have been doing in the past two days and will continue to do in order to turn it into a Jewish city, it is important for all lovers of Israel to exert public pressure (phones, faxes) to Mk's, public figures, Rabbis , etc...and urge them to get involved in preventing Shdema from becoming a Arab town.Instead it should be turned into a Jewish town. By the way,that would certainly help the many young israeli couples who keep on, rightfully, complaining that yong couples cannot buy any affordable place in Jerusalem.
Attached are 4 pictures of today's return.Today we managed to hang a large Israeli flag on the broken water tower.
Shabbat Shalom,
The committee for the creation of a Jewish City in Shdema
