'Lebanon, Part of the Promised Land': Israel's Messianic Right Wing Targets New Territory for Settlements
Before you dismiss the religious messianists who held a small online conference on Monday with their eyes set on reclaiming 'God's Promised Land,' remember that their plans for West Bank settlement seemed equally outlandish 50 years ago
Toward the end of Monday's online conference organized by Uri Tzafon ("Wake Up the North"), a far-right movement calling for Israeli settlement in southern Lebanon, a feeling emerged that this wasn't really an event worthy of coverage.
After all, this was a group of religious messianists discussing a topic so seemingly detached from reality that, at its peak, only 280 people were watching its YouTube channel.
And then the moderator, Prof. Amos Azaria, introduced a panel discussing "Successful Models of Settlement From the Past and Lessons for South Lebanon" with Daniella Weiss, Yehudit Katzover and Rabbi Elishama Cohen.
Unlike the previous speakers, this panel had no expertise or insight on the history or topography of Lebanon. But what they had was proof that a small, determined group can change the course of Israel's history.
Back in the 1970s, Weiss and Katzover were among the leaders of the movement that founded the Jewish settlements in Samaria and Hebron. Cohen, a lesser-known figure, has spent the last seven years climbing with a tiny band of young students to the ruins of Homesh – the West Bank settlement evicted in 2005 as part of the disengagement plan. However, the Netanyahu government passed its "canceling the disengagement" law last year, allowing them to build a permanent structure there.
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