Meraglim Remixed

Nadia Matar's latest article

"Egged buses are currently festooned with huge posters bearing the slogan: "Let the People Decide." My stomach turns when I think about the hundreds of thousands of shekels - and perhaps more - that the Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is wasting on this campaign, instead of channeling the money to preparations for the upcoming struggle this summer - the renovation of empty houses to absorb the thousands of new residents, the purchase of generators, tents, stores of food and water for the tens of thousands of people who will dig in, and the like.

When the spies returned from scouting out the Land, the people had to decide whom to follow. Would they follow the ten spies who told them how beautiful the Land was, but "we cannot go forward against that people, for it is stronger than we," "the country is one that devours its inhabitants" - or would they go with Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun, who declared: "Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it" (Deuteronomy 13).

Let the people decide? The people did decide. Not only did they want to stone Caleb and Joshua,

Could any modern referendum be clearer than this? All the Children of Israel, the whole community, an overwhelming majority, were against Caleb and Joshua, and for a return to Egypt. What did G-d say to this? Did He accept the results, and say that, since a majority of the people wished to renounce the dream of the Land of Israel, they should return to Egypt! Definitely Not!

If G-d was so harsh with the liberated Israelite slaves when they were still in the wilderness on their way to the Land of Israel, a land that they had never seen - how much more scandalous is it when we, who have already settled and taken possession of this Land, dare to speak about the possibility of handing it over to the enemy?"