The Development of Israel’s War Contingency Evacuation Zone
Supplement to Archive Updates 5 to 11
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
August 27, 2005
The article which follows is the latter half of an essay from the JPost Online by Avrum Ehrlich, who is a Professor of Jewish Philosophy at Shandong University, China.
I urge you to read our Archive Prophecy Updates 1 through 11, which describe the great purpose and plan for the botanical future of the great Negev Wilderness
of the Bible.
BEGIN JERUSALEM POST ARTICLE
Essay: Now, Can We Make the Negev Bloom?
By Avrum Ehrlich, THE JERUSALEM POST
August 25, 2005
DEVELOPING THE Negev has long been recognized as one of Israel’s top national missions. I urge a concerted effort to enlist the former Gaza settlers to this mission.
Their political leadership, rabbis, ideologues and activists should be mobilized – as communities – to make the Negev flourish.
Low-key requests won’t do the trick; there has to be a national campaign to convince the Gaza settlers to take on this project.
If presented as one of the most important national undertakings
of the generation, as one of the tenets of Zionism, and explained as a mission that will remain a priority into the future, this call has the potential to harness the visionary ambition of the Gaza settlers.
Israel’s leadership must admit what we all know: Only a community of faith, comprised of determined, selfless people, possesses the wherewithal to achieve this mission. I’d like to believe that such a project could capture the imagination of thousands of former Gazan Jews.
Why not imagine what Gush Katif’s farmers – indeed entire Gaza communities – could do for the Negev? After all, the Negev is also part of Greater Israel.
The messianic imagery of making the desert bloom resonates profoundly with religious sensibilities, and has the potential to substitute for the euphoria surrounding Judea, Samaria
and other biblical areas.
Filling the vacuum created by disengagement and redirecting religious energies to the task of grooming the Negev may be the right combination of social, religious and psychological ingredients to neutralize the impending post-Gaza crisis. It could harness the enthusiasm
of a community which has otherwise lost its sense of purpose.
The romance associated with sowing the desert resonates with religious Jews and settlers.
The Negev’s messianic associations could reflect their ideal
s. That potential should not be underestimated, nor should the settlers’ zeal be wasted.
The Jews of Gaza are uniquely suited to pioneer the Negev. Theirs is a strong ethos of self-sacrifice. They are a tightly knit group. They know agriculture and science. They’ve shown an ability to develop strong community institutions – educational, public health and social – under remarkably adverse conditions.
IF GIVEN the support of the state and international benefactors, if implored to sacrifice yet again on behalf of the Jewish people, if this request were genuinely supported across the entire political spectrum of the Israeli public, the former settlers of Gush Katif plus other people of vision could be prevailed upon to transfer their sense of anger, frustration and betrayal with the state into something that would be positive for the Negev and – not least – for themselves.
Considerable resources should be directed to the rehabilitation of the people who could ideally carry it out. Only great and ambitious schemes can harness their enthusiasm. There could be water desalination projects, a Med-Red canal, science parks, dams and reservoirs.
It is of utmost importance that the project succeed, and
that the religious ideology behind that success be vindicated.
Perhaps some of the anticipated funding for post-disengagement logistics could be used to immediately re-ignite a downcast community and provide it with the support to realize some of its most heartfelt religious aspirations.
This could even cause the Gaza pullout to eventually be seen as a blessing in disguise.
What they might accomplish would reverberate across Israel, world Jewry and the international community. Jews reviled in the international media would be given their pride and dignity back. Their unfair status as pariahs would be transformed; they’d be important, appreciated agents of development and innovative nationalism.
This is a constructive and intelligent way to deal with the thousands of settlers and their hundreds of thousands of supporters. Instead of repressing their enthusiasm, it can be beneficially channeled.
I can only hope that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Vice Premier Shimon Peres (who has the mandate for developing Galilee and the Negev) recognize the wisdom of this idea. They’d be making a match that would allow some of the damage done to Israel’s best human resources to be repaired.
The writer is a professor of Jewish philosophy at Shandong University, China. He has written books on messianism and articles regarding the future of Jewish peoplehood, and is editor of The Encyclopedia of
the Jewish Diaspora.
END JERUSALEM POST ARTICLE