Two lawmakers from the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, Deputy Knesset Speaker Limor Son Har-Melech and MK Hanamel Dorfman, visited a new Jewish neighborhood in Jericho on Sunday morning. The neighborhood was established after eight Jewish families moved into homes that, according to Kikar HaShabbat, the settlers had bought in a covert operation.
Otzma Yehudit in Jericho
Otzma Yehudit MKs Visit Jericho Neighborhood
MKs Limor Son Har-Melech and Hanamel Dorfman met the eight Jewish families now living in homes bought on the outskirts of Jericho and called their arrival part of the fight to undo the Oslo Accords.
Zvi Elimelech Sharbaf, chairman of the Nachala settlement movement, led the tour. He briefed the lawmakers on the return of Jewish settlement to the city and on plans to develop it further. Son Har-Melech, who also sits on the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and Dorfman met the families living there, heard about the challenges they face, and pledged to work to strengthen and expand the community.
Nachala, working with the Binyamin Regional Council, led the purchase of the eight houses on the outskirts of Jericho, near the Hasmonean palaces. Otzma Yehudit's lawmakers present the families' arrival as another step in their campaign to cancel the Oslo Accords and change the reality those agreements created. The campaign combines legislation, parliamentary work and strengthening the Jewish presence on the ground.
"Jericho is the lock of the Land of Israel, and whoever controls Jericho controls the entire land," Son Har-Melech said during the visit. "Here Joshua bin Nun began the conquest of the land, and today these pioneering families are continuing the biblical story of the people of Israel, with the same faith, the same devotion and the same love of the land."
"More than thirty years ago they declared 'Gaza and Jericho First' and turned these two places into the symbol of the withdrawal and surrender of the Oslo Accords," she added. "Today we are setting out the Zionist counterweight: Gaza and Jericho first, with renewed Jewish settlement! Just as we are returning to Jericho, so we must return and settle in the Gaza region as well."
Son Har-Melech thanked the families, the Nachala movement and the Binyamin Regional Council for their dedication. "Our struggle to cancel the Oslo Accords is being waged in the Knesset and on the ground, and the settlement here is a significant step on the way to correcting the historic injustice and restoring the Jewish hold on all parts of the Land of Israel," she said.
Dorfman described the visit as moving. "There is something especially moving about standing here, in Jericho, in the place where the people of Israel began their journey in the Promised Land," he said. "More than thirty years ago Jericho became a symbol of the Oslo Accords, and today these pioneering families are writing a new chapter here."
"Our struggle to cancel the Oslo Accords is a struggle for the future of the Land of Israel, and the way to change reality also runs through settlement on the ground," he said. "Every house that is settled, every family that makes its home here, weakens the grip of the Oslo Accords on reality and strengthens the Jewish hold on the land. We are committed to giving these families full backing, to working to establish the settlement, and to continuing the momentum of construction throughout Judea and Samaria."
Sharbaf said the families had reversed the meaning of the old slogan. "Historically, 'Gaza and Jericho First' was the symbol of withdrawal and of giving up parts of the homeland. Today, thanks to the pioneering families already living in the houses we bought in Jericho, we are reversing the equation and establishing facts on the ground: Gaza and Jericho first, with renewed Jewish settlement and presence," he said. "The visit by MKs Limor Son Har-Melech and Hanamel Dorfman gives a tailwind and strengthens this hold, which is a first and significant step on the way to a full historic correction."
