Lessons of October 7 Begin with Settlements, Green Lines, West Banks and Otef Azza

 Here's a thought...a lesson of October 7

The concept of the "green line" and the "West Bank" should be erased from the minds and speech patterns of Israelis after October 7. Allow me to explain why...

If October 7 should have taught us anything - it is that we are all Israelis, part of the same nation. More than that, it taught us that our enemies are common as well. They came on October 7 - not to kill settlers, not to kill religious Jews. They came to kill any they could find, as the Nazis did.

The green line was a line in the sands drawn in 1948 and erased in 1967. It never existed before and will never exist again. It is meaningless. We are all Israelis. We all fight together, stand together, die together...and so we must also live together.

Only we can decide if this is a sunset or a sunrise

The "west bank" of the Jordan river defines us in relation to Jordan, not as what and who we are - the nation of Judea returned home, the land of Israel. The west bank did not exist as a separate entity before 1967, when it no ceased to exist. Jordan stole it in 1948 from the Jews and Arabs who lived here in the pre-1948 land of the British Mandate. There was no independent Palestine ruled by the Arabs.

The Canaanites were not Jews, nor were they Arabs. They did not know Hashem and Allah didn't even exist (at least not the knowledge or religion). They were pagans...and they were wiped out by the Israelites...and the few who survived were absorbed into Israel...

As to the west bank - Jordan penned the term and we've all been suckered into using it. There is no west bank - unless you mean the one in Paris. There is, as there has been for thousands of years, Judea and Samaria.

So why post this now? Because there are still Israelis who divide Israelis be in and over the mythical green line, or say they don't want to live or give services to those in the "west bank".

During the Holocaust, our enemies showed no distinctions. On October 7, our enemies showed no distinctions. All Jews crossed the Red Sea; all Jews gathered at Har Sinai and all Jews have suffered through the millennia to get to this point, where we all stand together in this country, our country.

So if you are afraid to live in the west bank, remember that on October 7 and in the months of rocket fire from south and east and north, our enemies didn't attack our homes here. And on October 8, no one who lives in Judea and Samaria asked their brethren in the south or north - why do you live there? Don't you think it's too dangerous?

We never turned to you and said, OMG, I'd never want to live there, so close to the enemy.

We never turned to you and said, "what did you expect? Letting them into your homes...helping them...giving them access to everything..."

What we did, was cry with you, mourn with you, pray for you, donate to you, cook for your communities, do everything we could to support and love you.

And we did more. We sent our sons to try to find your loved ones, our loved ones.

Years and years ago, when buses were blowing up in Tel Aviv and Netanya and Haifa, a friend told me to be careful going home. He was worried about the fact that I live here - here in Judea in the beautiful mountains surrounding Jerusalem, on the very edge of the desert, high above the Dead Sea in the distance.

And finally, realizing his determination to separate me from him, us from you, I surrendered and told him that once I left Netanya, I'd be safe. It was petty and I regretted it but I knew from other comments he had made that he considered them (them but not me) foreigners in this land, people who spoke a language he didn't understand, worshipped a God he did not know, practiced a religion that wasn't his. Them but not me. Not me because he got to know me and we were friends.

As a friend, I could never be them. So in his mind, there was them and there was me. I told him that I didn't know what he was talking about. That I was absolutely "them" - those who live in Otniel, Itamar, Bat Ayin. And more, he was them too. He smiled and we ended the discussion. Still friends.

After Gush Katif, he who took a vacation day to enjoy watching the expulsion told me that instead he had cried. Too broken to be grateful, I told him that I surrender - that he was right, there are two people who occupy this land. No, not the Arabs and the Jews, but the Jews who consider us one people, and the Jews who see a we and a them.

I told him that I anyone who could watch the scenes of the expelling of Jews from Gush Katif and Northern Shomron were not my people. I've regretted those words, that surrender for a long time.

And today I come back - there is no west bank. There is no green line. there is no Kav HaTefer. There is no Otef Azza, there are no settlements.

If we are to survive, we are one nation. One people - Am Yisrael.

Yesterday, I turned on the US News to hear Donald Trump say something no one has ever said before. Right or wrong isn't the issue - but the unspeakable words were spoken. He spoke of a world without Israel - the dangers of preventing Israel from defending itself, of supporting terrorism, Iran.

A world without Israel begins when you cut us into us and them.

Am Achad - Lev Achad, Am Yisrael Chai
One people, one heart, the nation of Israel. Eternal.