Source: The Jerusalem Post
Apr 19, 2007
Jews made refugees by their own government when they were forced to leave their homes in 2005 plan to celebrate Israel's independence next week by visiting the lands they were so cruelly uprooted from.
Reports in Israel Thursday said families from the community of Homesh, situated in northern Samarian hills, will spend Independence Day at the site they once called home.
Like many of the 10,000 Jews forced out of Gaza and another Samarian community in compliance with international demands, the people of Homesh believe they will return one day.
This year marks the 59th anniversary of Israel's rebirth as a nation in its ancient homeland, in an unprecedented event that took place nearly 2000 years after their forebears were driven into exile.
It also heralds the 40th year - a full generation - since the Jews were returned to the Gaza Strip, Samaria, Judea, and their 3000-year-old capital, Jerusalem in the Six Day War.
As they remember the joyous celebrations marking that miraculous restoration of the most precious parts of Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), the Jews of Homesh - along with their quarter-of-a-million countrymen who still live in these endangered territories - will be wondering what the future holds.
For these celebrations will take place amid increasing efforts on the part of the United States and the Olmert government to see these lands - dearly won, and for so many centuries desperately longed-for - relinquished for all time.