A story is told of a Jewish boy named Yankle who was suffering from a serious illness in 19th century Poland. His doctor recommended that he be sent to a farm in the countryside where he could gain strength and vigor by working the land. Desperately hoping for a cure, Yankle’s Orthodox Jewish parents agreed to send their city-bred son to a non-Jewish farm in the Polish countryside, where he would be the only Jew. One day, Yankle noticed that all the gentile farmers were singing while working the land. When Yankle inquired why they were singing, the farmers explained that there is a “song of the land” – a song that they, the farmers, were able to hear. Distressed, Yankle asked: “Why can’t I hear the song that all of you can hear?” The farmers explained: “Yankle, you cannot hear the songs of the land because this land does not belong to you and your people. The land only sings to its rightful owners!” These words shook Yankle to the core. He understood, for the first time, that he must somehow move to the land of Israel. For only there, in the homeland of the Jewish people, would he be able to hear the song of the earth.

Sitting on a picnic table in the Oz V’Gaon national park in Judea, Nadia Matar, co-founder of the Women in Green and Sovereignty movements, explains why this story brings her to tears. “It put into words how I felt when I lived abroad.”

Nadia’s tears in no way belie weakness; they are a symbol of her profound connection to the Biblical heartland of Israel. Known as the “Joan of Arc of the settlements,” Matar has earned a reputation as a hardened warrior of Judea and Samaria due to her fierce love of the Land. 

Miraculous Survival

An effervescent 56-year-old mother of six and grandmother of seven, Matar, who was born and raised in Belgium, recalls how close she came to never being born. During World War II, her father and grandparents eluded Hitler’s death camps by hiding in the basement of a righteous gentile in Belgium. 

Her mother has an even more incredible survival story. Fleeing Nazi occupied France, Nadia’s grandfather escaped to Spain. Following soon afterwards, her grandmother trekked by foot over the Pyrenees mountains with her baby daughter, Nadia’s mother. Arriving at the border, her grandmother was not allowed to enter with her child. Afraid for her daughter’s life, she paid a stranger to take her baby across the border into Spain, hoping to follow as soon as possible. Miraculously, the baby arrived safely at her father’s door in Spain; to this day, the details of her delivery remain a mystery. 

Raid on Entebbe

Though she grew up without any religious education, Matar describes her family as “very Jewish,” and they closely followed news from Israel.

On June 27, 1976, Air France Flight 139 departed from Tel Aviv and made a layover in Greece. Among the passengers boarding the flight in Greece were Wilfried Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann of the German Baader-Meinhof terror group and two Arab terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. After takeoff, they hijacked the plane, forcing it to land at the Entebbe Airport in Uganda, where they were welcomed and protected by Uganda’s dictator, Idi Amin. Making their intentions crystal clear, the terrorists immediately separated the Jewish and Israeli captives from the rest of the hostages, and demanded that the Israeli government release dozens of dangerous Palestinian terrorists in exchange for the prisoners’ release. 

As the world watched in awe, the IDF launched “Operation Thunderbolt,” a bold rescue mission that miraculously succeeded in saving almost all of the hostages. Arriving virtually undetected at the Entebbe airport, the IDF surprised the terrorists and Amin’s forces. Three Jewish hostages were killed in the crossfire, as was the leader of the mission, Yoni Netanyahu, brother of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. All of the other hostages were safely rescued by the Israeli forces.

A 10-year-old at the time, Matar says she “will never forget the tension” during the days leading up to the rescue, when the fate of the 248 hostages hung in the balance. Hearing the unbelievable news of the rescue mission’s success, she remembers dancing in the streets in pure joy. This was her watershed moment, when she realized that she “belongs in Israel,” not in Belgium.

Women in Green

Matar made Aliyah as a 19-year old in 1985, and soon married her husband David, a medical doctor ten years her senior. The couple happily settled in the Judean town of Efrat in 1987. But six years later, on September 13, 1993, her “Israeli utopia” was shattered. Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin publicly shook hands with arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat and signed the Oslo Accords, agreeing to relinquish sovereignty of much of Judea and Samaria.

Shaken by the government’s betrayal of the settler movement, Matar called a secret meeting to protest the Oslo Accords. At the time, the legacy Israeli media portrayed protestors against the Oslo Accords as violent religious extremists. Matar, along with her mother-in-law, decided to give the struggle against one-sided territorial concessions a more human face, founding “Women for Israel’s Tomorrow,” a grassroots movement dedicated to safeguarding the land of Israel for the Jewish people, its rightful owners. 

Their first protest took place on a major highway outside of Jerusalem. All the women in the rally were asked to wear green, symbolizing the “green line” of Israel’s pre-1967 borders that would once again become Israel’s borders should the Oslo Accords be implemented as planned. Covering the protest, the media called them “Women in Green,” a name they soon proudly adopted. 

When the highway protests stopped getting the media’s attention, Matar and the Women in Green went on the offensive, protesting outside hotels where the Israeli architects of the Oslo Accords gave speeches. Remembering those difficult days, Matar recalls instances of police brutality that she and her fellow activists endured. They were not dissuaded.

Gush Katif

A few years later, in 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s decision to unilaterally disengage from the Gaza Strip sent shockwaves throughout Israel. The beautiful Jewish communities of the Gaza Strip, known as Gush Katif, were slated for evacuation. Hoping to stop the disengagement, Matar, along with her family, moved to a village in Gush Katif called Kfar Yam, where she managed to renovate a mobile home. She established a perimeter around her and her neighbor’s homes with barbed wire while inviting hundreds of teenagers to camp out on the beaches of Gaza adjacent to her trailer park. Matar’s makeshift fortress made it “as difficult as possible” for the IDF to evacuate her and her fellow activists without resorting to violence against Israel’s soldiers. Unfortunately, the Israeli government followed through on the evacuation, and Matar and her fellow activists were forced to ‘retreat’ back to her home in Efrat.

The Three Boys

In 2014, three Israeli teenagers – Eyal Yifrach (19), Gilad Shaar (16), and Naftali Frenkel (16) – were kidnapped and murdered by Arab terrorists who tricked the boys into entering their vehicle on their way home from school. Hamas officially claimed responsibility for the abduction and murder of the three boys. The attack occurred in Judea, just a few miles from Matar’s home in Efrat. 

The murders were devastating to all Israelis – but it was Matar who resolved to take action in response. Several acres of forested land just south of Efrat which were originally slated to become a state park had been abandoned and turned into a trash dump. Before the funeral of the three boys, Matar mobilized hundreds of volunteers to clear out the area, get rid of the trash, and camp out at the site to demonstrate that it was now under Jewish/Israeli control. After the garbage was gone, Matar, along with her team of dedicated volunteers, rolled up their sleeves and built what is today a beautiful wood-crafted playground that has become a destination for parents and young children as well as a rest stop for weary IDF soldiers. She called the site Oz V’Gaon after the victims of the horrid kidnapping. The word “Oz” means strength, and “Gaon” is a Hebrew acronym combining the first letter of each boy’s first name – Gilad, Eyal and Naftali.

The Importance of Sovereignty

Sitting on a picnic bench in Oz V’Gaon, Matar explains her role in the struggle for sovereignty in Judea and Samaria: “The sovereignty of the Jewish people is on the table. Sadly, during the Arab uprising of May 2021, we saw that they challenged our sovereignty, not only in Judea and Samaria but in the whole country, by attacking Jews everywhere. Through the Sovereignty Movement, Yehudit Katzover and I are making a fundamental point: all of this is happening because we have not declared, once and for all, that Judea and Samaria belong to the Jewish people.”

According to Matar, by not applying sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, Israel is passing on a message of weakness

“We are showing we are not sure of ourselves and our rights to this land,” she says. “They say there is Arab terror because the Arabs have despair. It’s exactly the opposite. There is Arab terror because they still have hope. Because as long as we don’t apply sovereignty, they have hope that they can one day get a Palestinian state, that they can get parts of our land. By applying sovereignty, we will crush their hopes once and for all, and we will make it clear that they will never have a Palestinian State. That is when things will get better.”  

The Land Sings for its People

Returning to the story of Yankle and the land’s song, Matar waxes poetically about the music of the land of Israel.

“The land of Israel is not simply rocks and earth; it is something alive, with a song of its own,” she says. “But it only comes to life, it only sings, when the Jewish people are here. Only then can we fulfill our mission and become a light unto the nations.”

“The people of Israel belong in the land of Israel, and when we’re here, we can hear its music,” she adds. “This is ‘God’s concert,’ the concert we have been waiting thousands of years to hear. We in the sovereignty movement believe that this is our land, and God gave us this land. We’re fighting to make sure that the concert and the music will continue.”

Despite her failure to prevent the Oslo Accords and stop the evacuation of Gush Katif, Matar remains optimistic about God’s ultimate plan for the people of Israel. 

“If we read the book, the Bible that God gave us, we know that there will be a good ending in which the entire land of Israel according to its Biblical borders will, in the end, belong to the people of Israel,” she explains. “It may take time, but that’s where we’re headed. We’re headed towards the sovereignty of the Jewish people over the entire land of Israel.” 

“If we live in Israel under somebody else’s sovereignty, we’re not fulfilling God’s command,” she remarks. “God wants our people to live in all of Israel, under Jewish sovereignty. That is what our movement is all about.”