Remember: You were once a slave in the Land of Israel

In the wake of yet another suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, here is what Israel's Chief of Police, Moshe Karadi, had to say in a recent interview with Israel's Channel 2...

Police chief: We'll use force... if needed

"The scenes we have witnessed throughout last week are very bad. There is something worse than using violence, and that is giving in to violence...".

"This is why we must not accept the phenomenon we have seen. These people are law breakers who do not recognize the state's authority, which is why we have no other choice but to enforce the law and do what needs to be done," Karadi, concluded.

Believe it or not, Karadi was not referring to last week's terror attack and the need for a strong response by the State of Israel to end the threat against the Jewish State once and for all, and not continue to give into Arab violence. No, Karadi was referring to the Jews of Hebron who have refused to quietly leave an area that has been recognized as legally belonging to the Jewish community of Hebron.

Caroline Glick said it best in her Friday column in the Jerusalem Post - 'Cool' anti-Semitism:

Case in point is the government's handling of the Jewish "squatters" in the former marketplace in Hebron. The property in dispute is owned by a Jewish trust - the Magen Avot Sephardic Community - which purchased the land 199 years ago. Today, the Magen Avot Sephardic Community is headed by former Sephardic chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu. The Community wants the property to be used to house Jews.

On the face of it, it all seems rather cut and dried. The area is directly adjacent to the Jewish Avraham Avinu neighborhood. It is owned by Jews who want its current Jewish residents to remain in place. Why would the government have a problem with eight Jewish families living in the former shops in full accord with the expressed wishes of the property's owner?

On Tuesday morning I asked Lieutenant Assaf Azoulay, the spokesman for the Judea and Samaria Division, this question during a visit to Hebron. Azoulay responded angrily, "It's an issue of the supremacy of law!"

What law is being broken? Is it illegal for Jews in Israel to live in land that is legally recognized as being owned by other Jews for hundreds of years? Is it legal for the Government of Israel to act as if the State of Israel is a police state, in which those in power have the absolute authority to arbitrarily decide to throw out any Jew from his home just because they feel like it?

If the Government of Israel and the security and judicial establishments are so concerned about upholding the rule of law, to the point that they are willing to use 4,000 members of Israel's security forces to destroy the Jewish community of Amona which they deem as being illegal, then where is the concern for upholding the rule of law when it comes to illegal Arab construction throughout Israel?

Illegal construction has become an effective means to challenge Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, to undermine major infrastructure and housing projects in the Negev and Galilee, to limit the freedom/security of Jewish movement along major transportation arteries, to facilitate terrorism and to exacerbate crime. While Israel has faced that threat meekishly, it is enforcing the law in an iron-fist manner when it comes to a few scores of Jewish houses throughout Judea & Samaria and Hebron (built on a Jewish-registered property, which was ravaged by Arabs in 1929).

Where is the Israeli government's outcry as illegal Arab construction cuts off Gush Etzion from Jerusalem? Is not Gush Etzion considered, even by the most left-wing to be part of the ultimate borders of the Jewish State? Why the blind eye and deaf ear being turned by the government and judicial establishment in the wake of this heinous land grab by our enemies?

And what of Jerusalem, the as of yet, undivided and eternal capitol of the Jewish State?

* Over 1,000 illegal houses are built annually – by Jerusalem Arabs – since 1997. Only 30-40 are demolished by the authorities.

* Since 1967, there has been more Arab residential (largely illegal) construction in Jerusalem than Jewish construction in the capital of the Jewish State.

* About 10,000 illegal houses are built, annually, by "Green Line" Arabs in the Galilee, Negev, "Triangle", Lod and Ramleh. About 100 are demolished.

Where are the Peace Now petitions decrying the illegal Arab construction, demanding that Israel's Supreme Court uphold the rule of law? Where are the calls by acting PM Ehud Olmert or IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz to use any and all means to put down these law breakers?

This is not the first time in the long history of the Jewish People where Jews received "special" treatment at the hand of the ruling regime. Just as we survived and outlasted all the others, so to will we outlast this one and live to witness the establishment of a truly Jewish State in the Land of Israel.

It would only be logical that before the State of Israel decides to expel the Jews of Hebron from homes that legally belong to them that they should concern themselves with upholding the laws that they themselves have enacted in an even-handed manner.

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