The Nachala settlement movement called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and the government to "make a courageous decision and immediately begin building Jewish communities in northern Gaza. This is a national mission of the highest order – returning settlement to Gaza is not only a moral response but a security and strategic necessity."

Wednesday saw a march in northern Gaza border communities, within touching distance of where the former communities of Nissanit, Dugit, and Elei Sinai once stood. Thousands of participants – including hostage families, bereaved families, Gush Katif evacuees, soldiers, rabbis, and Knesset members – called out "returning to the Gaza region."

Responding to the poll, Yehuda Wald, Religious Zionism party CEO, wrote on his X account, "The truth is it's a miracle. Despite all the panic in the channels, despite all the dire explanatory commentary from the former officials, despite all the blackening and delegitimization campaign against Religious Zionism people who express these value positions, large segments of the Israeli people haven't lost their way. They want to return to Gush Katif, they want to defeat Hamas, and they want courage and not weakness. There is hope."

One of the most surprising elements in the Israel Hayom poll was the sweeping support from the Haredi public for renewed settlement in Gaza. While their Knesset representatives remain silent regarding this move, and specifically the religious Zionist public is identified with the initiative, 83% of Haredim responded that settlement in Gaza should be renewed, compared to only 5% who answered it should not be done, and the remainder who answered they don't know.

Among the religious public, 67% believe Jewish settlement in Gaza should be renewed, compared to 17% who answered negatively to such an initiative, and the remainder who answered "don't know." Among secular Israelis, there is 50% opposition to renewed settlement in Gaza, compared to 29% who answered positively, and the remainder who answered they don't know.

The post 52% of Israelis want Gaza settlements back appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

It's been ages since a truly unifying Zionist dream captured our collective imagination – especially one that seems utterly impractical. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently epitomized this lack of vision when he dismissed any notion of re-establishing the Jewish Gush Katif settlements bloc in southern Gaza.

We've lost sight of how much we need these seemingly impossible dreams. They once set our hearts racing and, more importantly, became our reality. These visions serve two crucial purposes: they inspire us and provide a necessary counterweight to Palestinian rhetoric.  For nine months now, they've been uniting around their own "dreamy," sick, and catchy slogan, which they consider realistic: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." Millions worldwide, from Gaza City to London and Paris, have been chanting this mantra since the war began. Its implication is clear: the elimination of Israel and its Jewish population. The world has grown disturbingly accustomed to this rhetoric.

We could use a "killer" dream of our own (in the positive sense of the slang) right about now. The very soul of Israel, its existence, and certainly its foundation, lie in such seemingly unrealistic visions. Over the years, thanks to dreamers, visionaries, and passionate believers, these fantasies have become our lived reality. When these aspirations align with leaders who respect reality but aren't constrained by it, our nation leaps forward.

Even today, we'd benefit from such audacious dreams and leaders who remember that in our 76 years as a state, the abnormal has often become our normal. It's one of the secrets to our existence here. To a large extent, we are, almost by definition, an irrational phenomenon. One could cite countless examples of this, from pivotal historical moments to everyday miracles. Even Prime Minister Netanyahu, who recently deemed returning to Gaza "unrealistic," is well aware of this paradox.

Netanyahu knows there's no connection between realism and Theodor Herzl's grand vision of a Jewish state. Unlike many, he's familiar with the often-forgotten second half of the visionary's famous quote: "If you will it, it is no dream. And if you do not will it, a dream it is, and a dream it will stay."

When will Hamas truly feel defeated?

Herzl was just the beginning. If David Ben-Gurion, Israel's 1st Prime Minister had only considered realistic factors, he probably wouldn't have declared statehood. The entire Zionist enterprise – gathering scattered people to their ancestral homeland, then dominated by an Arab majority – defies conventional logic.

Before our War of Independence, when our situation seemed even more precarious than today, who would have imagined that the cities of Lod, Ramle, Beit She'an, Acre, Ashkelon, and Ashdod would become thriving Jewish cities? Were our victories in '48, '67, and '73 considered realistic at the time? Before the Six-Day War, who dared dream of a unified Jerusalem, with Jewish access to the Western Wall, Temple Mount, Rachel's Tomb, Hebron, and the Cave of the Patriarchs?

Even Netanyahu, who recently championed realism regarding Gaza, has made bold, seemingly impractical moves throughout his career. These include his current diplomatic maneuvering to prevent the Palestinian Authority from entering Gaza, the ground operation in Rafah, and the hostage rescue missions.

If millions in Gaza, Nablus, Tulkarm, and among the Palestinian diaspora believe they'll one day build homes on Israel's ruins, why should we dismiss the far more positive and constructive vision of reviving Jewish life in Gaza and Gush Katif as mere fantasy?

This stance isn't just ethically questionable; it's strategically short-sighted. The only outcome Hamas will truly consider a defeat (as I argued back in November) is the permanent loss of territory. Military occupation is temporary; settlement is permanent and lasts for generations.

This is how victorious nations have always operated. It's how the sense of defeat was cemented for Palestinians and Arabs after 1948 and 1967. It's how many Egyptians felt after peace with Israel, when they regained their sacred Sinai down to the last inch.

The power of audacious visions lies in seizing opportunities. After the Six-Day War, some ministers proposed returning the West Bank for peace and retreating to the '67 borders. Others challenged this pragmatic approach through pioneering settlement efforts. The result? Today, half a million Jews live in Judea and Samaria, with another quarter-million in formerly divided parts of Jerusalem.

Daring to dream

Even within Jerusalem, dreamers and realists clashed. Thanks to the former, we now have a foothold in the City of David, Jerusalem's ancient heart. After a 50-year struggle, Jews now pray regularly in the Temple Mount area with official sanction. Despite alarm bells from pragmatists, neighborhoods like Har Homa, Pisgat Ze'ev, Ramot, Ma'ale Zeitim, and Givat HaMatos now stand proud in Jerusalem. Jews live in all quarters of the Old City, and soon, God willing, Atarot in northern Jerusalem will mark the capital's new frontier.

Netanyahu himself, despite his recent pragmatic stance on Gaza, has pursued seemingly unrealistic goals throughout his career. His current efforts to prevent a Palestinian state in Gaza, his insistence on the Rafah operation, and the hostage rescue missions all belong to the realm of audacious dreams. History will remember these favorably, even as it grapples with his ultimate responsibility for the failures leading to October 7.

Like much in Zionism, the settlements of Gush Katif – which Yitzhak Rabin promoted and Ariel Sharon dismantled – blended opportunity-seizing with dreaming against the odds. The debate over realism transcends timing; it's a clash between those focused on the immediate present and those who dare to envision a bolder future. Herzl, David Ben-Gurion, and Menachem Begin all belonged to the latter camp.

Don't get me wrong – we shouldn't pursue a policy solely on visions and dreams. But we must give these aspirations a central role in shaping reality, not automatically bowing to current constraints. This applies to the hostage crisis and the war against Hamas as much as anything else. The balance between pragmatism and vision should evolve with circumstances, but the Zionist project must always retain a healthy dose of the seemingly irrational and abnormal. As diplomat and thinker Yaakov Herzog (uncle to President Isaac Herzog) once put it: "Israel is a state infused with faith, and faith is embedded in its very foundations... it exists as a paradox. For Israel, 'normalcy' has proven meaningless."

The post Israel needs to think big on Gaza; Zionism turns dreams into reality appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Speaking to Israel Hayom, Olmert says that "In the cabinet, we were supposed to vote on the disengagement plan. I get a telephone call from Arik [Sharon]. I was in the North, and Arik says to me, 'Listen. I'm thinking of changing the whole disengagement. I'll pull out of five settlements around Gaza.' I asked him, 'What?' and Arik says, 'I can't anymore. I'm sick of this.'"

 Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Q: What was he sick of?

Olmert: "The pressure on him from inside the Likud camp was unbearable. I asked him, 'Arik – will you have a majority for five settlements?' and he answered, 'I think so.'

"I told him: 'Don't be so sure. I, for example, won't vote for that. I won't make a fool of myself. We set up a plan, and now to pull out of only five settlements? That's ridiculous. I won't play any part in it.' And Arik told me: 'Come to the ranch, and we'll talk.'"

Olmert says he went to visit Sharon's ranch, where he told the prime minister he could not cave to the anti-disengagement pressure.

Olmert says he told Sharon he must not "give in to this gang of nothings," that he had opted for a historic move that was the "right thing to do," and he had to stick to it.

According to Olmert, he told Sharon: "If you pull back now, you'll just bring on more pressure. Two weeks from now, you'll come to a faction meeting and the back benches will rise up against you. They smell weakness."

Olmert says that Sharon's son Gilad said, "Ehud is right."

Sharon was convinced. He called cabinet secretary Israel Maimon and instructed him to pull Sharon's revised plan to raze only five settlements, and work according to the original plan that would encompass all the settlements in Gush Katif, as well as four in northern Samaria.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post 'I stopped Sharon from limiting the disengagement to 5 settlements' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Wissotsky made his proposal after he concluded that the Jewish agricultural settlement that existed in the Land of Israel was insufficient to provide for the new olim coming in from Russia. Wissotzky 's vision began to become a reality a year and a half later. A founding core group arrived from Jaffa under the leadership of Avraham Haim Shlush and Nissim Elkayam. Later, other families from Jerusalem and Hebron joined them, and eventually, the Jewish community increased to 30 families. The Arabs of Gaza, as difficult as it might be to believe, welcomed them.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Journalist and researcher Haggai Hoberman has just published a new book about the venture, titled "A Jewish Community in Gaza," in which he tells the story of the city's Jewish history. If today, "Gaza" is synonymous with terrorism and alienation, a place with a Philistine and Palestinian past, Hoberman's new research tells the unknown story of the Jews who lived there for generations, from the days of the Hasmoneans, during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods, in the Middle Ages, and until the early 20th century.

In our era, Gaza and its religious leaders are seen as demonic. An image bolstered by the TV series Fauda, Hoberman reveals that once, Gaza was home to Islamic religious leaders who were no less devout than those of our time, but different. It almost reads like science fiction. Who would believe that only 110 years ago, then Chief Rabbi of Gaza Nissim Binyamin Ohana, and then mufti of Gaza Sheikh Abdullah al-Alami, co-authored a book?

"In Gaza," Ohana wrote in one of his essays, "I wrote a book, Know What the Heretic Will Say in Response with the mufti of Gaza, Sheikh Abdullah, who would visit my home twice a week because he wanted to know the exact meaning of the verses copied from the Old Testament into the New Testament by the apostles."

Ohana also wrote that he initiated the construction of a mikveh (ritual bath) for women in the city, as well as a project to purchase ground for a Jewish cemetery after he saw how the dead of Gaza were transported to Hebron for burial on the backs of donkeys.

The children of Gaza – Jews and Arabs – liked to wear daggers embellished with locally produced beads. On Muslim holidays, Avraham Elkayam would take part in horseback and wrestling competitions.

"We purposely lost to the Bedouin, lest they be offended," the Jews of Gaza would later recall.

In September 1910, the newsletter "HaPoel HaTzair" reported that "relations between Arabs and Jews are very good, and no Jew has ever suffered in Gaza for being a Jew."

 In 1914, Zvi Hirschfeld, the founder of the Ruhama moshava in the western Negev, wrote in his diary that "On Tu BiShvat the children from the Gaza school had an excursion on our land and planted trees and ate the fruits of the land and celebrated the New Year for trees in a befitting manner, with songs and poetry."

The decision to take the schoolchildren to Ruhama was not a random one. Hirschfeld, who hosted them, embraced Gaza's Jewish history. He even bought a fragment of a pillar from an ancient synagogue from the priests of the Catholic church that had been built on the ruins of that same synagogue. The fragment was inscribed with the words, "The angel who redeems me from all evil will privilege me to go up to Jerusalem."

When Ruhama was destroyed, Hirschfeld took the fragment with him to Rishon LeZion, and when he died of typhus in 1918, his relatives set it on his grave, where it remains today.

Here are a few key points on the history of the Jews in Gaza: It was conquered by Jonathan Hasmonean in 145 BCE; it is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud in the fourth century CE; Nathan of Gaza, who smashed the Torah of the false Messiah Shabbtai Zvi, who converted to Islam. Nathan of Gaza is the one who, on the eve of Shavuot 1660, declared Zvi "the savior of Israel." He did so in the synagogue of Gaza. The famous Cairo Geniza also fills in some details about the Jewish community in Gaza through the generations. There is also the rabbi and poet Yisrael Najara, possibly the most famous of the Gazan Jews.

Najara was the chief rabbi of Gaza for five years until he died in 1625. He was the son of the Safed rabbi Moshe Najara, who was one of the students of Rabbi Yitzhak Ben Shlomo Luria. Yisrael Najara wrote 650 poems, both secular and religious, some of which have never been seen in print.

Q: The biblical Samson, one of the most famous Bible characters, lived in Gaza. Did the Jews who lived there or visited the place for generations mention him, or sites linked to his name?

"One of the most famous travelers to visit the Land of Israel, who recorded his visit here in 1481, is Rabbi Meshulam of Volterra. Rabbi Meshulam tells that the Jews of Gaza made wine, describes a small synagogue that was active in the city, and mentions the location of Delilah's house, where Samson lived. A French Crusader who visited the Land of Israel in 1395 mentions Samson and, just as interestingly, describes the dress of the Gaza residents in that period: the Muslims wore white turbans, the Christians wore light blue head coverings, and the Jews wore yellow ones!"

Vines and olives

One of the more exciting events he unearthed took place two years before the 1967 Six-Day War, when Jews no longer lived in Gaza. At the time, the Egyptians wanted to build a casino near the Gaza Port pier, and the construction work uncovered a beautiful mosaic. At first, Christian religious officials claimed it was part of the remains of a fifth-century church, but archaeologist Professor Michael Avi-Yonah and a formal archaeological dig that was conducted there after the war determined that the mosaic had belonged to a 1,500-year-old synagogue.

The mosaic included many drawings of vines and olives, as well as a detailed depiction of a harp, over which the name David appears. The mosaic was in poor condition, but luckily, the Catholic priest of Gaza – who had always thought the site had been a synagogue, not a church – photographed it when it was comparatively intact.

In 1921, when news of the rioting in Jaffa spread, the Jews of Gaza decided not to test their relations with the local Arabs and left the city, even though Mufti Hajj Said al-Husseini, a personal friend of Nissim Elkayam, begged them not to. He promised no one would harm them. Only when things calmed down did the Jews return.

Eight years later, in 1929, when the slaughter of the Jews of Hebron at the hands of their Arab neighbors became known, the British assembled the 44 Jews who still lived in Gaza in a hotel courtyard to protect them. On Aug. 25, Arab mobs armed with swords and daggers took to the streets. Shortly thereafter, they launched an assault on the hotel. The British police ran for their lives. David Gshouri, one of the Jewish residents, was licensed to carry a gun. He fired in the air and the crowd fell back. Another mob of rioters managed to break into another room, where the local pharmacist, Dr. Yakar, and a few other Jews were hiding. One of the Arabs attacked Dr. Yakar, who sprayed him with sulfuric acid, forcing him back.

At this point, city dignitary Hajj Said a-Shawa, whose son Rashad would become the mayor of Gaza in the 1970s, arrived. A-Shawa stood at the hotel entrance and tried to calm the rioters, but found it difficult. The British decided to take no chances and removed the Jews from the city. They were taken to the train station in trucks. En route, Arabs attacked the trucks and again, it was Said A-Shawa and two of his other sons who demonstrated courage and got into the trucks with the Jews and repelled the attackers. That night, a train arrived from Alexandria and the Jews took it to Lod. Even when they were on board, mad Gazans hurled rocks at the train windows.

An ancient alliance

The Jews of Gaza, Hoberman says, never forgot the help they received from the A-Shawa family. Later, they repaid them. After the 1956 Sinai Campaign, Lt. Col. Mordechai Elkayam, Nissim's son, was appointed deputy governor of Gaza.

Elkayam appointed another one of A-Shawa's sons, Rushdie, mayor. Rushie A-Shawa had been deposed by the Egyptians on the eve of the war. But A-Shawa thought his re-appointment would cast him as a collaborator. To protect him, officials with the Israeli military government wrote a nationalist, anti-Israeli speech for him to give.

The speech made A-Shawa's willingness to accept the job conditional upon significant aid to Gaza from the Israeli government. A-Shawa had originally planned to give a flattering, pro-Israel address that he wrote himself. The trick worked. The thousands of Gazans who had gathered at the city hall plaza cheered him and put him back in power.

The second time Israel helped the A-Shawa family was when it learned that Arab nationalists were planning to murder Rashad, Rushdie's younger brother. The murder was planned as revenge for Israel having restored Rushdie to the position of mayor.

At the time, Rashad was the leader of a criminal gang and was also in touch with an Egyptian terrorist organization. Elkayam, who was still deputy governor of Gaza, arrested Rashad and put him in prison to keep him alive. The official excuse was his membership in the terrorist group. Rushdie was summoned to Elkayam's office to protest the arrest of his brother and only when the circumstances were explained did he relax.

Israel repaid the A-Shawa family a third time in 1971, when Ziad al-Husseini, commander of the "liberation forces" in the Gaza Strip, committed suicide in Mayor A-Shawa's basement. Al-Husseini left a letter in which he called the A-Shawa family "the dirtiest in the history of Palestine."

Hoberman says the letter was "ungrateful."

"For weeks, Mayor A-Shawa had been conducting negotiations with the IDF to secure free passage for al-Husseini and his friends, and never revealed that the terrorist fugitive was hiding in his own house," he adds.

After Al-Husseini's suicide, then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan issued orders to bomb A-Shawa's home, remove him from all his official positions, and put him on trial. Yet again, the Elkayam family rushed to save the A-Shawas.

Moshe Elkayam, the brother of the deputy governor, appeared on television and told viewers how the A-Shawa family had saved his own relatives in the 1929 riots. Dayan, who knew the Elkayam family story, helped arrange the TV appearance, both to help A-Shawa and give himself a reason not to bomb the latter's house.

Hoberman devotes the last several chapters of his book to the history of the Gush Katif settlements and their evacuation in the 2005 disengagement. Hoberman sees those settlements as the continuation of the earlier Jewish community in the city of Gaza, the "southern gate to the Land of Israel." He believes that one day, the synagogues of Gush Katif will be rebuilt, just like the Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem – which the Jordanians shelled in 1948 – was rebuilt and refurbished a decade ago.

In the meantime, Hoberman is content with researching and documenting the generations of history of Jewish presence in the Gaza Strip.

The post Gaza, like you never knew it appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Instead of laying the groundwork for the creation of a Palestinian state that would live in peace alongside Israel, many across the political spectrum in Israel now believe that the Gaza withdrawal of more than 8,500 Jews in August 2005 serves as a costly case study demonstrating the implications of evacuating lands and turning them over to Arab control.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Many of the assumptions proposed by Israel's military establishment ahead of the withdrawals have proven false, while the social impact of the evacuations have left deep scars on many of the Jewish residents who lost their homes in the experiment.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen led the IDF's 36th Division that was responsible for carrying out the disengagement. At the time, he personally opposed the move, yet still carried out his assigned duties as a commanding officer.

"In a way, I now see the disengagement from Gaza as sort of a miracle from heaven," Hacohen told JNS.

"Just imagine if Hamas would have remained quiet for several years after the disengagement; there would have been a general consensus in Israel to disengage from Judea and Samaria. No one in his right mind in Israel will now agree to a disengagement from Judea and Samaria except for a few left-wing radicals."

Hacohen explains that the military assumptions that were asserted by proponents of the withdrawal from the security community have been proven "totally untrue."

The first assumption, he said, is that "territorial separation between Israelis and Palestinians, including massive evacuation of Jewish West Bank neighborhoods, will delineate borders, reduce friction and create stability."

Rather than lead toward a peaceful coexistence between neighbors, Hacohen said that "on the contrary, massive evacuation from Gaza gave Hamas a chance to fortify itself and make life for Israelis miserable."

He said that leading up to the controversial withdrawal, Israel's security establishment insisted that if security broke down, "the Israeli government would not hesitate to decide to embark on any necessary military operation;" that "the IDF will be able to remove this security threat within days;" and that any such an operation would be supported with "broad international backing."

When asked why he implemented the disengagement if he opposed it at the time, Hacohen told JNS that he felt if not for him, "it would have been a million times worse."

As he explained, "if the struggle in Gush Katif would have escalated to a point where soldiers would have been killed or injured severely, the settlement movement would have been delegitimized by the masses, and Sharon would have no problem evacuating the settlers from Judea and Samaria. I made sure that did not happen."

Broken hearts, shattered faith

Aside from the security setback of the Gaza withdrawal, former Gush Katif Regional Council member Yigal Kirzenshaft told JNS that the evacuation has taken a severe toll on the displaced community and ruined a model, albeit a flawed one, of integration between Jews and Arabs.

He said the government has done a less-than-satisfactory job of compensating the evacuees and helping them rebuild their lives, now 14 years after the disengagement. "They promised us full compensation and said that there will be a solution for everyone, but it turned out bollocks; they really never had any solutions."

Kirzenshaft related that the expulsion broke up some of the families who left. "The divorce rate increased, and it shattered the faith of many. Most of those expelled belonged to a national religious community to whom the value of Eretz Israel was sacred.

"The heartbreak of the expulsion even caused many to fall ill and die prematurely. These are young people who died from heartbreak."

Kirzenshaft added that "most of the residents were owners of greenhouses, where they grew and exported vegetables with a very high turnover rate. One acre produced 20 tons of tomatoes. It was a supernatural blessing, despite the fact that before we came it was a desert, total desolate. Now it reverted to its former state of total desolation and serves as a safe haven for terrorists."

"When we lived in Gush Katif, it was good for the Jews and for the Arabs," said Kirzenshaft. "The Arabs of Gaza were employed by the Jewish farmers and had a decent income to provide for their families. They did not want us to leave. Just recently, someone told me that one of the Arabs who worked in one of our greenhouses is now trying to grow a greenhouse on his own, but with no success."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

The post IDF general who helped carry out disengagement calls it 'a failed experiment' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.