The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Mayor Oded Revivi on Terrorist Killings of 3 Efrat Residents

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Oded Revivi is the mayor of Efrat, an Israeli town in the West Bank. Earlier this month, three Efrat residents—mother Lucy Dee and daughters Maia and Rina Dee—were shot and killed by terrorists. Revivi joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to talk about how Efrat is moving forward, what the Dee family is experiencing (and why they are glad one of Lucy Dee's organs went to an Arab person), the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and why so-called "settlements" like Efrat are important for Israelis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, April 18th. I'm Kate Trinco, and today we have my interview with Mayor Odette Ravivi. He is the mayor of Ephraat in Israeli town near Jerusalem, where recently three of its residents were killed in a terrorist attack. We'll talk about that and how the community is doing and the greater issue of Israeli-Palestinian violence and what can be done. Stay tuned for my conversation with the mayor after this. The reading clerk will now call the role. Bigs. It's money and power that control this town.

Bishop of North Carolina. All we're talking about chaos and dysfunction in Washington because Republicans didn't sit down like Democrats do. Crane. It's like this cul-de-sacca greed and corruption and it just keeps going around and around. Gates. I felt like it doesn't even matter which party wins the majority because both sides are working for the same lobbyists. Luna.

I had a reporter. a reporter that basically accosted me in the hallway saying really vile stuff. Perry. One member came up to me and said, your presence disgusts me. Roy. So maybe the American people need to know the truth. And it's extraordinary what happens when you tell the truth in this town. People go, what the hell are you doing?

Why would you do that? The fact is what we want, because we were telling the truth. What you've just listened to is our brand new exclusive documentary about the 20 House Republicans who fought against the Washington establishment. We sat down with representatives, Chip Roy of Texas, Eli Crane and Andy Biggs of Arizona, Anna Paulina Luna, and Matt Gates of Florida, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania,

and Dan Bishop of North Carolina, about the speaker race and why they chose to take a stand. The documentary is now available on the Daily Signal's YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram pages. Joining me today on the Daily Signal podcast is Mayor Odette Rivivi. He is the mayor of Ephraat in Israeli town in the West Bank, not far from Bethlehem. I was able to meet Mayor Revivi earlier this year when I was on a trip with the Phelos Project. Mayor Revi, thank you for joining us today.

My pleasure. All right, so earlier in April, three residents of Ephra were killed. Lucy D. and her two daughters, Maya and Rina D. They were driving in the West Bank, I believe, en route to Galilee, and the car was shot at. The two girls died immediately, and their mother died a few days later. So far, the suspected Palestinian terrorists haven't been caught. How is the town of Efrat doing after losing these residents? I can't say I wasn't expecting this question.

And even though I was expecting it, I think it's very hard to summon words what has been going over the town in the last 10 days since the terrorists shot the car and what was gone through since then. going through a funeral of two young girls who haven't reached the age of 20, seeing all their friends, all their peers, the extended family. It's heartbreaking. There's absolutely no justification for having to attend such a funeral. And the people of Afat showed their love and support to the D family.

There were massive prayer groups in order to pray for a quick recovery of the mother. There was support groups to support those who felt that they need comfort and support and professional assistants to deal with such a tragedy. And within 48 hours,

we found ourselves in an event which just repeated the first one, a third funeral, this time for the mother. This time it was in pouring rain. and you saw thousands of the residents of the truck and this area, literally doing a human chain from the House of the Dees all the way up to the cemetery,

which is more than 10 kilometers, with people standing outside waving their flags, banners of support, and trying to show the Dee family how much they're loved and really supported by the community. Wow, that's incredible. Would you say that people beyond the support, are they feeling afraid? Are they worried about driving in the West Bank and there being further attacks? So you need to remember two things. First of all, the incident itself definitely hit the

frat very hardly because all three casualties, all three women that were murdered were from a frat. But the terror attack took place quite far away from a frot. It's a threat. It's a very hard. more than an hour and a half drive from the city of the fraud. So it's not in our district. However, in our district, there were also terror attacks. And what we find usually is that, yes, it is frightening, it is worrying. But then when you see the statistics, when you see the map, when you are aware that the day after this terror attack happened in the Jordan

Valley, there was another terror attack in Tel Aviv, where a tourist was run over by a Palestinian terrorists. So you understand that these terrorists, they don't attack because of a geographical location. They attack where they can see somebody that they can hit and hopefully, according to them, even kill. And they just do it because we are Jews living in the land of Israel, and it doesn't really matter where we live or what we're doing, just the fact that we're Jews after us as Jewish people. Now, the Dee family immigrated from Britain. According to the times of Israel, Rabbi Leo D., the husband and father,

he told Prime Minister Benjamin Nadeniahu when they met this weekend, he said, I don't regret coming to Israel one moment. Does it surprise you that Rabbi D has that attitude? And can you talk about why Jewish people from across the world to feel it's important to move to Israel? Well, I was present in that meeting, so I can't even say to you that the quote that's been put out isn't accurate. And Rabbi D. said it, not crying, not mumbling.

He said it proudly. And he even took a guess, and he said, I'm even guessing that Lucy also doesn't regret us moving to Israel. Anywhere else where Jewish people live, at the end of the day, they're subject. to the protection of the specific country that they live in. And we unfortunately know that their targets and there are attacks against Jewish people all around the world, Jewish synagogues, Jewish restaurants, community centers,

and sometimes they're extremely lethal and cause many casualties. Israel is the only place where the Jewish people are protected by the Jewish army, the Israeli IDF are protected by the Israeli police, and we are the ones who government protect our own residents and citizens. And bearing that in mind, at the end of the day, the safest place for the Jewish people to live in is the state of Israel. So if you were present at that meeting, can you share anything else about how it went and what you felt during it?

You know, people think of meeting the prime minister. It's going to be a very formal meeting. usually pressurized with time, usually not managing to cover everything you wanted to do. The meeting was surprising, I think, for all participants. I can't speak for the prime minister because I didn't ask him. But I think everybody else was extremely surprised by what was going on in the meeting. The meeting lasted for over an hour and a half. Obviously, the prime minister started open, said his words of condolences.

and then Tali one of Rabbi Leo these daughters asked him a very straightforward question and she said to him you know you have lost a brother

tell me how do you overcome it and you saw a very personal question from a girl who is 17 years old to a prime minister who is over 70 years old and it was as if that they knew one another for years and he was guiding errors to how he had survived the loss of his brother.

He said something which I never knew. He said that at first he lost the ability to taste. He was eating and he didn't know, he didn't have any sense of taste because of the trauma and the shock that he went through losing his brother. and then he gave small hints, small suggestions, words of wisdom from his experience, how to deal with such a terror attack, and how to deal with such a loss, and of course with words of comfort and trying to ease their situation. It ended up with Rabbi D asking for five minutes with the prime minister,

Minister privately, which ended up with a meeting which lasted over 30 minutes, whilst the helicopter of the Air Force, who was supposed to take the Prime Minister for the rest of his schedule, was waiting on the ground, which is against the Air Force Protocol. It was just waiting on the ground until the Prime Minister finished his unexpected meeting with Rabbi D. at that meeting, there were just the two of them. Three different people, officers came into the room, told the Prime Minister, there was a helicopter waiting on the ground to take you. And he said, I'm busy.

Just wait for me. And they waited for over 30 minutes until they actually concluded that intimate and private meeting as well. Thank you for sharing that. Now, let's talk about Efrat a little bit. It is what is sometimes called a settlement town. Ephraat is in the West Bank, land that Israel owns, but Palestinians consider occupied territory. I do want to talk about Efrat's founding and where the land came from. But first, I want to know your story.

How did you come to Efrat? Did you grow up in a town on the West Bank? If not, why did you decide to move to one? So me personally, I was brought up in Jerusalem. We got married in 1993. Didn't have enough money to buy a property in Jerusalem. did have enough money to buy a house in Afrath. Consider it being a suburb of Jerusalem, 15 minutes away from Jerusalem.

And that's how we ended up in Afraat. Today I can tell you that that's not the reality for youngsters. A frat is becoming a very demanded city. The demand is much higher than availability. Prices are growing higher and higher. and basically we are in a situation that prices here are higher than there are in a lot of neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Okay, so not quite as affordable as it used to be. When I was able to meet with you with the Philo's project, you talked about Effret's founding

and specifically where the land, the town is built on, came from. Can you talk a bit about that? Yes, definitely. I think there's a lot of confusion between the titling, the names, and the actual background in history. Frat was established in 1983. Beforehand, there was nothing built on this land. Generally speaking, the land in Judean, Sumaria, throughout the history, has moved. ownership from different governments or countries that ruled in this region. If we go back between 150 to 500 years, this area was governed by the Ottoman Empire, and there were the rulers in this region.

They left behind them something very rigid, very important for us, which is called the Land Registry. and according to that, we know that the land is split into three major categories. It is split to a small area of land which is called Miri, which is small and very irrelevant, but the major bulk of land are called state land and private-owned land. when you ask yourself who is private land, that can be any private individual, that private individual can have a deed, can have some proof of ownership. State land is the major bulk of land, which there becomes a question is who is the state

who actually owns this land. And it's definitely not the Ottoman Empire because they have not claimed this land for quite a long period of time. It is not the British Empire who said to the international community, we've done here a big enough mess and called somebody else to clear it up. And up until 1967, you could have argued that in Judean, Samaria's case, at least, it was Jordan. But Jordan also with their peace agreement with Israel, have basically given up their claim to this area of land. So it is uncertain as to who is the state that owns this land.

That's why I don't recognize the title of occupied territories because you can't have occupied territories if the previous occupier has given up his title over the land. So in the best case scenario, you can call it disputed territories. And when we discuss disputed territories, So Israel, when they want to build in Judean Samaria, they explore the land, make sure that the land is registered under state land. Then they would go out and explore to see if it's being possessed by any specific individual. If they see that the land is completely open, no agriculture use of the land, no person living on the land, then they will surround it.

times around to say that they are interested in calling it, redeclaring it as state land. And only then Israel will redeclare it as state land if there's no anybody objecting to it. If there is anybody who is objecting to it, he has the ability to file a complaint or request to the committee that it will be his land. that request is being heard. If it's being rejected, he has an ability to go to a committee of appeal, if that is rejected, he has the ability to go all the way up to the Supreme Court. We have incidents like that, which lasts over 20 years in the legal process,

which during that period, the Israeli government doesn't do any usage of the land. if during that period after that period after that legal process has been ended then Israel will re-declare it as state land and start using it for whatever purposes Israel fits that are the ones that we need to and that's how the city of a fat was built

after making sure that this land doesn't belong to any private individual that it is actual state land and I think the fact that we don't have here any disputes with our Arab neighbors on a day-to-day basis. Don't protest against the fact that they would claim that we've taken their land is a proof that this land really didn't belong to anybody. And that's why Afrath is not surrounded by a fence. That's why Afrata has got very good relationship with our Arab neighbors. And that is something that we're definitely very proud of. So speaking of the Arab neighbors, I read, I don't remember if it was the meeting this weekend or a different meeting, but the rabbi D had mentioned that one of his wife's organs had gone to an Arab person and that she would have liked that, that, you know, her death had helped save the life of an Arab because she valued peace or something along those lines.

What are Afrat's relationships like with Arab neighbors generally? So if we are mentioning the D family, I can tell you that today there were actually Palestinian neighbors who came to show their comfort to the D family. There are definitely different individuals who come and show their condolences and take part and showing their grief with the D family. And the D family themselves are definitely an example of how to behave and how to react in order to try and promote peace. And the fact that their mother's organs were donated to five different individuals,

one of them actually being an Arab, is definitely a symbol to many people that at the end of the day, we all humans are equal. And as the daughter said, and I am only quoting her, she said, we are not the ones to decide who the donation of an organ goes to. That's according to the medical committees. And if they decided that the best match of my mother's organ is to an Arab individual, then we're just proud that we managed to save another life. So to play devil's advocate here, towns like Efraud, in let's say, disputed territory on the West Bank, someone might say, well, doesn't Israel have enough land?

Why do you need to build on this controversial area? And what would be your response to something like that? First of all, Israel is one of the more crowded areas of land in the world. And I just told you about the property prices in Afrata. they're going higher and higher because there's more demand and availability. But also, between 1967 and 1977, there was very little building movement in Judean Samaria. Very little Jews actually moved from other parts of Israel to this region, mainly because the Israeli government, during that period of time, have invented an equation called land for peace. basically believing that the areas of land that we conquered during the Six-Day War in 1967,

we will be able to return and negotiate under the equation of land for peace. We had two peace agreements with Egypt and with Jordan. And those two peace agreements led to a reality, which I think we've mentioned before, that those Arab countries have basically signed a waiver in writing that they don't want the land back. The Egyptians gave up the land of Gaza, which they ruled up until the 1967 war, and afterwards in the peace agreement, they were basically not interested in receiving it back. And the same with Jordan, with Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem. When the Israeli government sees that this land becomes from occupied land to unwanted land,

and there's definitely pressure within Israel to start using this land, both because there is a shortage of land and also because of biblical reasons. Judean and Samaria is full of biblical sites, which is the history of the Jewish people, which connect us to this land. And that's why Israel starts using that land. And having said all that, with all the titles that this area of land actually creates, not many people are aware to a settlement enterprise,

all the Jewish town, cities, and roads leading to them. In this region, they occupy only 1.6% of this area, which is called Judea and Samaria. So if you are aware of the equivalence of the size of Israel, that they say that it's more or less the same size

as New Jersey. Judea, Samaria, is about 20, percent of the whole size of Israel. So we're talking about 20 percent of New Jersey, and it's only 1.6 percent of that 20 percent. So this whole enterprise, which creates so many headlines at the end of the day, doesn't take up that much land like people might be imagining during this broadcast. So there's been increased Palestinian-Israeli violence recently, including, of course, the terrorist killings of the D family. How does this cycle end?

I wouldn't say it's funny, but it's interesting that you're mentioning this question. Because there are those who believe that if we hit them stronger or if we protect ourselves more, then the cycle of violence will end. Rabbi D actually suggests that maybe we should take a different approach, and that is to increase circles of love instead of circles of violence. violence. The founders of the city of the threat, out of choice, decided not to surround the city with a fence with the belief that we want to build bridges with our neighbors and not fences. So whether you call it bridges, whether you call it love circles, people in order to live

alongside one another need to learn how to get along with one another. And Prime Minister Netanyahu sums it up in one sentence. It says, if the Palestinian people would have only recognized the right of the Jewish people to have a Jewish state, we would have already reached an agreement on the borders. The problem is that we're not

reaching that agreement. We're not reaching that compromise. And we are in an endless, vicious cycle of acts of terror, which we're not managing to get out of. theory because in many conflicts around the world, you see that there's a small, extreme,

loud, violent minority that they, at the end of the day, dictate the course of action, they are the ones to dictate the cause of discussion, and the vast, saying, silent majority are subject to their acts, not managing to get out of it. So you keep an eye on American politics. I believe you at least had conversations with Trump administration officials. What do you think of President Biden and his approach to Israel? I think I might surprise you in the answer to your question. I was actually present at the Trump administration inauguration.

And President Trump said a statement which not many Israelis understand, but he said, and he repeated it time after time again, America first. And in that respect, I don't think it's any different from any other previous president, and it's no different from Biden. Biden puts America first according to how he sees it. The American administration, especially this one, has decided to invest less in the Middle East and look at other areas in the world that they are more bothered with what's happening. That is a risk which the American administration is taking. Am I happy with that risk? I don't think it's a sensible risk.

I think they are neglecting things which are happening in the Middle East, which might, at the end of the day, hit the American people by a surprise. I do understand that there are other challenges. There's China. There's Iran. There's Ukraine. There are definitely things happening in other areas in the world. But if you want to be that superpower, you want to be that nation that is the strongest and the leading. one in the world. That's dictating what's happening in the world. You don't have the privilege

of deciding that you're neglecting some of the arenas, because at the end of the day, you might be surprised in those arenas with something happening that you didn't really anticipate or you didn't really desire or you didn't really think could actually happen. So a group of leftist American lawmakers wrote a letter last week about Israel. The lawmakers included Senator Bernie Sanders and representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilan Omar. In the letter to President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken, the lawmakers wrote, We write to you with deep concern regarding the rapidly escalating violence in the occupied Palestinian West Bank in the alarming actions of the new extreme right-wing Israeli government.

We urge immediate action to prevent the further loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives. At this inflection point, we ask your administration to undertake a shift in U.S. policy in recognition of the worsening violence, further annexation of land and denial of Palestinian rights, end quote. The lawmakers specifically called on Biden and Blinken to make sure that no U.S. taxpayer funds supported West Bank Israeli towns. What's your reaction of this letter and your overall view of leftists in America and their views on Israel? I think there are two main problems with this letter, and that's ignoring the fact that I completely don't agree with their argument. But the two major problems that I have with that letter, number one is the fact that Israel is a democratic country.

We had elections. A government was elected. I'm not always happy with the result of the elections in the United States. I don't have much to do with it. I'm not entitled to vote in the United States. And I understand that that's how the system works. And sometimes you get people that you want get elected in, and sometimes you don't. And having a criticism, having a mind about the Israeli elected government,

when you are not the ones who elect the government, it's troubling because then you're trying to interfere with a democratic decision, which was made by the people of Israel. The outcome of the election is not arguable. That's the government that the Israeli people chose. Why? For various reasons, whether they're domestic, whether they're international, whether they're financial. That's the government that was chosen.

The second thing that's bothering me with their argument is the thought that the Israelis and the Palestinians are equal in this country. acts of violence. Israelis who get killed, like the three people from Afraq, 10 days ago, were three innocent

citizens, individuals. They could have been, by mistake, also Arab Israelis. They could have been tourists, like happened the day after in Tel Aviv promenade where Italian tourists was run over. They didn't do anything wrong to anybody.

They were just driving, they were just touring, they were just shopping, they were just doing whatever they did, and they were killed just because they're Jews or just because they were thought to be Jews. On the other hand, in the Palestinian side, those who get killed are always, if it's not done by mistake, are individuals who are active in acts of terror. They are involved in acts of violence. They are planning to go and kill innocent people.

and Israel is acting under defense to trying to protect its citizens. When American lawmakers put both parties in the same line, in the same equation, under the same treatment, that's doing a lot of misjustice to what is actually happening. And I suggested those private individuals to come toward this area, see what's happening, and then maybe come to more knowledgeable suggestions to the American administration. Okay, Mayor Revivi, thank you so much for your time today. My pleasure, and I hope that we meet the only happier circumstances. And that'll do it for today's episode.

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