Tim Boxer At Friends Of Bet El Dinner
Rubin Margules insisted we should stop calling the land occupied territories. “We occupy no one’s land but have returned to the land that God promised us.”
Margules, a longtime Zionist activist, was one of the honorees at the 29th annual dinner of the American Friends of Bet El Yeshiva Center last week at the Marriott Marquis in New York. Bet El, called the place where Jewish history began, is situated on that land, a heartbeat north of Jerusalem, a stone’s throw east of Ramallah.
“We should stop expelling Jews from this land,” said Margules, who serves as head of the Brooklyn region of the Zionist Organization of America. “We expelled Jews from Gaza and we have seen the calamitous results.”
Eugen Gluck, honorary chairman of the American Friends and a pioneer builder of Bet El, said he hopes the Israeli government “has learned from past
mistakes.”
Emcee Avinoam Bitton presented awards to Rabbi Etan and Esther Tokayer, Raizy and Moshe Zicherman, and Mushkee and Dovid Efune, and Margules.
Knesset member Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister and former ambassador to the U.S., recalled an old Kissinger gag to make a point. On an alleged visit to the biblical zoo in Jerusalem, the secretary of state was amazed to see the lion lying next to the lamb. How can this be? The zookeeper explained: “We bring him a fresh lamb every morning.
“Throughout history,” Ayalon said, “we were the sacrificial lamb. Israel will no longer be kicked around.The Jews of Judea and Samaria are called colonizers when in truth they are the heroes of the Jewish people.”
Ayalon added: “One thing we will never ask of America is to go in harm’s way for us. We are quite capable of defending ourselves.”