Members of the Sovereignty Youth Movement held a hasbara campaign in a number of cities throughout the Land to promote the vision of sovereignty and in preparation for the approaching youth convention.
In an integrated hasbara project spread out over the entire Land, members of the Sovereignty Youth Movement erected hasbara and conversation booths to inculcate the vision of sovereignty among the general Israeli public. The booths were deployed in many locations throughout the Land, including in Jerusalem, Sderot, Acre, Nahariya, Rehovot and others.
As part of the operation, the young men and women of the movement gave out hasbara materials to promote the application of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and held discussions with passersby who held diverse opinions on the matter of sovereignty. The movement sums up the campaign with great satisfaction and speaks of great public interest in the vision, the ways to implement it and the question of the correct timing for its promotion.
Shira Yehonatan, a member of the movement, tells of an encounter with citizens at the hasbara booth that she had set up in Ma’alot Tarshiha: “One of the questions that arises frequently in discussions with people is why promote sovereignty especially now? Now, we have to deal with more urgent matters such as the economy, etc. We answered that the battle for the Land of Israel did not begin now and doesn’t end now, everything starts with the Land of Israel, education, Torah, agriculture and of course, the economy as well - everything begins with the Land of Israel”.
Hodaya Winter, a resident of Jerusalem, also tells of great interest in the booth that she set up at the city’s Central Station. According to her, the meeting with the People of Israel, its various sectors and the opinions held, was refreshing and restored to the discourse ideological matters and principles centering around the Land of Israel and its future. “It amazed me to see how much influence our activities have. People passed by, asked questions and became interested in the subject”, she says.
The youths held the campaign as part of the preparations for the large youth conference that is expected to be held on Thursday, the 30th of Sivan (June 10), a conference that will be entitled “My Land” and in which the call ‘'”The Jordan valley first” will be raised.
To this, Friedman, one of the directors of Sovereignty Youth, adds emphatically, that this is an operation that fits very well with the ongoing activities of the movement. “The youth work very hard all year long on all matters in this field . Weekly, we set up booths, hold conferences and events and we produce hasbara flyers on a monthly basis. We are trying to make the subject of sovereignty and its importance accessible- no matter what the political situation is. The topic of Sovereignty must stay in the public consciousness at all time.”
The movement says, with great satisfaction, that the booths were accepted with a very positive attitude. The hostility that may have characterized discourse on the subject a decade ago, has passed and there is now an interest and readiness to internalize the importance of the vision of sovereignty. “The public awareness of sovereignty has become amazingly stronger, and now the youth just has to continue its activities to bring the leaders to understand the magnitude of the hour too, and the magnitude of the challenges before them. Especially during the Biden era, and with the rise of terrorism in Israel streets, we must respond in the appropriately Zionist way – with sovereignty”.
The co-chairwomen of the movement, Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, praise the activities of the youth movement and promise to continue onward. “The youth proves and will continue to prove how deeply it understands its role of its generation in the chain of the Zionist mission. And especially during a period when it seems that values of the Land of Israel, Zionism and Jewish identity are pushed aside somewhat, in favor of economic and social matters, the youth understands that this is the right time to raise the banners of Zionism proudly and remind all of us of the values that united the People of Israel throughout the generations, values that led and are still leading the People of Israel to its Land, to be a free and sovereign people in its Land”.
“The contrived attempt to change the public agenda and push aside Zionist values and the aspiration for sovereignty, do not stand the test of reality. While there are those who want to engage in matters of the economy, society and public health, the Land of Israel is being snatched from the People of Israel. The PA is determining more and more facts on the ground and exploiting of every crack and gap in the situation where there is no Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. The youth understands well that without sovereignty, Heaven forbid, we might wake up to an irreversible reality of a de facto terror state having been established on the hills that control all of the centers of population in Israel, a reality in which the Zionist vision retreats, mortally wounded. With its all-important hasbara activities, the youth is restoring ideological and values-based discourse to the People of Israel and its leaders and restores all of us to a momentum of Zionist activity”.
The two women also note that the expected convention on June 10th that will include hundreds of youths, along with public figures, politicians, intellectuals and people of action, will represent more public leverage for Israel’s leaders to implement their declarations and promises to apply Israeli sovereignty in the Jordan Valley as a first step toward the application of sovereignty in all of Judea and Samaria. “Previous large youth conferences and seminars have given tremendous impetus to the movement’s activities. Activity groups were formed, ideas and initiatives arose and the youths understood the great power of their activities and set out, imbued with faith and confidence, to continue their activities. This is how it G-d willing will be with the upcoming conference as well”, say Katsover and Matar.
