Gary Cooperberg, November 29, 2007

About seven years ago Prime Minister Barak, President Clinton and Yassir Arafat met at Camp David to make peace. Jews all over the world trembled as Barak offered to give away nearly all of Judea and Samaria to the PLO. All the newspapers in Israel displayed a map of all the areas that Barak offered to Arafat, including my hometown of Kiryat Arba.

At the time these negotiations were taking place, my wife and I were sitting in an office, signing a contract to purchase a new luxury apartment in Kiryat Arba. Actually it was amazing that a contractor would have the faith and courage to build such homes here. We really could not afford the price of this lovely apartment, but we just could not resist going for it. We assumed that a good portion of the price would be paid by the sale of our old apartment. Unfortunately we just were unable to find a buyer for that apartment, so we rented it and borrowed more money to pay for the mortgage.

Although we were up to our noses in debt, we never regretted our decision. Fortunately for us, and for Israel, Arafat refused Barak’s kind offer. Once again our enemies saved us from self destruction. A couple of years later, our married daughter wanted to know if she could temporarily move into our old apartment. They had bought a new house in Eli, but could not afford to live in it. Instead they rented it out to help make the mortgage payments. They had planned to save up their money and move there in a few years time. We were delighted to have them move in to our apartment and certainly would not charge them rent. It was a pleasure having our grandchildren so close.

A couple of weeks ago they came to meet with us to discuss a serious matter of which we had no idea.

Slowly our son-in-law thanked us for allowing them to live in our apartment, and explained that they decided it was time to make a change. We expected them to announce that they were going to move into their home in Eli and leave Kiryat Arba. Instead they told us that they were selling their home in Eli and wanted to buy our apartment from us! We were astounded at this unexpected request and delighted that they had decided to remain in Kiryat Arba.

On November 27, the day that Ehud Olmert went to Annapolis to try, once again, to give away Kiryat Arba to the PLO, my children responded as we had, by sitting in an office to sign papers to buy a home here. There can be no doubt that, just as our disregarding the reality of our leaders attempt to give away our homeland resulted in our success and their failure, so too will be the result of the similar decision on the part of our children to invest in the future of Kiryat Arba and our Jewish homeland.

Were Jews all over the world to come home to Israel in large numbers and buy homes all over Judea and Samaria, the clever plans of those who think peace will result from Israeli surrender to our enemies would quickly evaporate. If you really care about the future of the Jewish Homeland, then come home and possess her!

Gary Cooperberg, a resident of the Jewish community in Hebron, Israel, is the founder and director of Project Shofar.

Copyright © 2007 Gary Cooperberg