Sunday, September 29, 2013

Terror -1988


Beyond Words
Selected Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane,
1960-1990
Volume 6

“Beyond Words” is a newly-published seven volume collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s writings that originally appeared in The Jewish Press, other serial publications, and his privately-published works.
Chronology of Rabbi Kahane's life.
“Beyond Words” now can be bought at Amazon.com.  On the search line, type…  Beyond Words Kahane.

TERROR!

For the Jew, the worst of terror is not some “Palestinian” gang, but the frightening thought that the United States will stop supporting Israel.  That is the specter that haunts the Jew; that is the terror that gives neither sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids.
 
On the one hand, the Jew is gripped by fear of the gentile and on the other, by the perceived need of the gentile.  Both psychoses stem from the same tragic source:  Lack, utter lack of faith and belief in the L-rd, G-d of Israel.  And lacking faith, the Jew of practicality also lacks total understanding of Jewish destiny.

“The exiles will not be ingathered except through the merit of faith.”  The words of the Rabbis in the Mechilta (B’shalach).  A statement based on the verse of Hosea (3:22): “And I will betroth thee unto me in faith, and thou shalt know the L-rd.”  It adds nothing to Jewish merit that this verse is said daily by the Jew who puts on the tefillin.  And to whom it means nothing.
 
A clearer statement could hardly be found.  The exiles will not be ingathered except through faith.  Does anyone believe it?  Really believe it?  Really take the words seriously?  Does the Jew who is spellbound and convinced of the magical efficacy of Ronald Reagan and the miracle of American aid really believe that the only way of betrothal to G-d is through perfect faith and belief that G-d is the One who can save the Jew – the only one?

Hardly.  The decision by the gentiles in Washington to begin talks with the PLO led to a combination of surprise, shock, fear and foreboding from Jews who are totally convinced that the United States is beginning the abandonment of Israel and that without the United States, Israel cannot survive.  Small people; little people of little faith.

Just as the first Jew was chosen because he believed, because he had faith in G-d and was prepared to stand alone against an entire world (as it is said [Genesis 15:6]: “And he believed in the L-rd, and He counted it to him for righteousness”), and just as the Jews of Egypt were saved in the first redemption only through faith (as it is said [Exodus 4:31] “And the people believed”}, so shall the final redemption of the children of the first Jew come about only through faith.  And indeed, it is the only way the redemption of glory and majesty can come.

The Jew will never believe as long as he has even one ally.  For as long as he is not alone, he will always maintain that his survival is due to the “ally.”  People of little faith cannot ever have the strength to think anything else.  THAT IS WHY THE ALMIGHTY WILL GUARANTEE THAT THERE WILL BE NO ALLIES.  For only when there is absolutely no one upon whom the Jew can lean and thus delude himself, only then, when faced with absolute hopelessness, will the Jew – with no other choice – turn to the All Mighty.

 And so, the beginning of the end of the delusion of American support is the beginning, too, of the end of the delusion that Israel’s survival depends on the gentile.  It does not.  And so, cease the hand-wringing and the moaning.  The Americans are not relevant to Jewish survival.  The Russians are not relevant to Jewish survival. Only the All Mighty is.  And because we do not believe it, we are about to embark on the painful process of learning it the hard way.
 
How foolish of us!  How needlessly we bring on ourselves tragedy!  Cease our dependence on the gentile and return to the L-rd.  Faith in G-d and a powerful Jewish arm will bring us the redemption in glory and majesty.
Written on December 23, 1988

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Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Our Friend, Our Enemy - 19777


From Barbara Ginsberg’s Desktop

 “K A H A N E”

The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea
May 1977 – Sivan 5737

 OUR FRIEND, OUR ENEMY


 There appears to be a popular and dangerous misconception that has spread among Jews to the effect that one who opposes Jews is necessarily and anti-Semite and that hatred or hostility to Jews is the trademark of the enemy.  The fallacy in this must be exposed lest we fail to properly assess the real enemy and act in the manner most calculated to thwart him.
 
To be sure, every anti-Semite is an enemy of the Jewish people but the converse – that every enemy is an anti-Semite is not necessarily true for it is clearly possible for one to be not an anti-Semite (or at least not particularly so or not more so than most gentiles) and still to be a deadly threat to the Jew, hence, his enemy.  More, it is possible for a gentile to sincerely respect and admire Jews and Israel, to sympathize with their plight and still be their enemy.  And because this axiom is so relevant to our times; because the greatest danger can come from the nation that most sympathizes with and is numbered as the best of the allies (if not the only one), it is important to analyze the concept and act upon that analysis.

 Long before de Gaulle or Churchill it was clear to any student of world or local politics that there are no allies but only interests.  Nations that were bitter enemies but yesterday become close allies today, because they have suddenly discovered – due to shifting circumstances – that their interests coincide.  Countries that only a short time ago fought side by side, turn into bitter rivals because their interests now clash.  It is not due to love or hate, and rarely does ideology have anything to do with the fact that Communist China will side with the blackest of reactionaries against their fellow Marxist Soviet Union because of national interests.

 France, which in 1956 began a decade-long “love affair” with Israel, did so not out of “love” of Mordechai, but out of the knowledge that the Suez Canal, Nasser and the Arab struggle against French rule in Algeria, made the enemy of her enemy her friend.  All over Israel there sprung up Israel-French friendship societies and to be French was to be loved in Israel.  And then, the world turned upside down and the couple broke up rudely and suddenly.  France suddenly emerged as the great ally of the Arabs and the most bitter enemy of Israel in the West.  Was there a sudden change in French attitudes toward Jews?  Was De Gaulle suddenly turned into an anti-Semite? Hardly!  The French may have disliked Jews before but that did not prevent them from being their number one arms supplier.  Any change now had nothing to do with likes or dislikes.  What had changed was not the personality of the French but their political outlook.  The Algerian war having ended and the scars of the French colonial struggle having healed, De Gaulle and the French now realized that the Arab world with its oil and growing political and economic power was important to French interests.  And because of this, French policy took a 180-degree turn.  Had Israel had the oil and the power, the French today would be wearing yarmulkes in the streets, if necessary.

And since one can sympathize with gallant Israel and admire her and still be motivated by self-interests to take stands that threaten her very existence, let it be understood that it is not the Soviet Union or the Arab states that stand today as the ultimate main enemy of Israel, but rather the country that in recent years was the best if not only ally – the United States.
 
The Soviets cannot force Israel to give in – they do not provide her with economic aid or weapons.  The Arabs cannot destroy Israel militarily.  It is Washington which has the greatest leverage.  It is Washington that can turn off the military and economic faucet.  It is Washington that can twist arms, choke and pressure.  It is Washington that – because of its interests are so opposed to those of Israel – is today the greatest enemy.  It is Washington that is our friend, our enemy.

There is no hatred of Israel here; there is no anti-Semitism involved and only fools will use that yardstick to gauge whether America is dangerous for Israel.  It is the Jewish Establishment leader who knows a Carter or a Vance or any other policy maker well and who says: I know that they are decent people who have not an anti-Semitic bone in their bodies, who blind us to the danger.  For the anatomy of the policy makers in Washington is irrelevant and though their bones be pure and free of hate, it is their interests that are the issue. And for the hundredth time I say: American interests are oil and the every-growing dependency on the Arab states; they are the billions in profits to be made in investment in Arab states; they are the petrodollars that, if invested in New York rather than Tokyo or Frankfort or Paris, will aid the American economy; they are the Russians whom Washington wishes to keep out of the Middle East.

All of these interests are clearly seen as favoring a pro-Arab policy and Israel with neither oil nor money nor the ability to woo the Russians, is at best a nuisance to America and at worst, dangerous.  Thus, Carter and all the others who salute the brave men of Entebbe and who may honestly respect Israel’s gallant fight, will nevertheless begin a brutal campaign to choke her into suicidal concessions – without hate; only with the thought:  Is it good for the United States?
 
And so Carter clearly says what I have cried out for months now:  We may have to impose a solution. Of course, he does not use those words.  Instead he says:  “I would not hesitate if I saw clearly a fair and equitable solution to use the full strength of our country and its persuasive power in an effort to bring those nations to agreement.”  No, not “imposing of the will” but only “persuasion” and “full strength”.  And of course, all the Jewish leaders know what he really means and are quiet because in Israel the Labor Party fears to show the people that its policy of “friendship with America” is a failure and the American Jewish Establishment is terrified of a real confrontation with Carter because it knows how weak Jews really are in the face of a popular President and more, because it is horrified at the prospect of a surge of massive anti-Semitism in the event of a clash between U.S. and Israeli policy.
 
And so George Ball writes in Foreign affairs that America must insist on total Israeli withdrawal and threaten to “suspend governmental assistance” as well as “eliminate essential tax credits (i.e. UJA) and take other administrative action to restrict the flow of cash gifts and bond purchases from American private citizens.”  Is George Ball an enemy of Israel?  Clearly.  Is he an anti-Semite, a Jew hater?  Consider how he begins the article:

“Most Americans approach the problems of the Middle East with a pro-Israel bias – and rightly so.  The desire of a dispersed people for a homeland cannot but evoke sympathy even of those with no Jewish roots…”  Indeed, the very title of the article is:  “How to Save Israel In Spite of Herself.”  No greater sympathy had an investment banker…
 
It is time to stop prattling childishly about love and hate, pro-Semites and anti-Semitism..  It is time to clearly realize that under all circumstances the United States interests differ radically from those of Israel and that Washington is committed to her own interests as she understands them.  U.S. pressure will grow to intolerable degrees.  She will turn on Israel and choke her with the suggestions of George Ball, for Ball speaks for a great many other Americans.  In the Readers Digest of April, 1977 Senior Editor William Griffith writes an article titled: “Let’s Resolve the Middle East Crisis-Now!”  And says: “Indeed, our aid which totals nearly $1.8 billion dollars this year is essential to keep Israel going.  If we make it plain to Israeli officials that we are determined to see their nation withdraw they will act accordingly.”  Both he and Ball and Jack Anderson in a column (“When the Arabs Speak, More are Listening”) emphasize over and over again the American dependence on Arab oil and the lessons to be learned from this.
 
What must be done? Clearly to begin to stop speaking of “good” and “bad” people in Washington.  Good or bad, they are all bad for Israel and the next step is to gather Jewish strength all over the world and to demand that Jewish leaders bury the fear of anti-Semitism.  Let there be support for a powerful government in Israel that says no to the pressure and that lets Washington know that it means it.  Let the Administration know clearly that Israel is developing weapons of mass destruction-atomic, chemical and biological-to use in the event of an American cutoff of conventional arms.  Let procedures be planned to evade any American attempt to prevent private funds from reaching Israel.  And let us return to faith in G-d  

The crux of the matter is interests.  The Americans are clearly committed to their own. Let the Jew do no less.

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Monday, September 23, 2013

The Only Hope - The National Referendum 1977

“K A H A N E”
The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea
Nissan -5737   April-1977

 

THE ONLY HOPE - THE NATIONAL REFERENDUM

 (Excerpts)
 
The election of a national emergency government for four full years, consisting of one party (rather than the impossible coalition of today) that will be obliged and have full power to implement the following program:
 
A)    Putting an end to the Arab uprising with all means that the army
deems necessary.  This will include automatic and compulsory expulsions of law-violators and their families, the free use of weapons against stone-throwers and other attackers of Israelis, as well as permission for Jewish civilians traveling in the territories and under attack, to use their weapons freely in the same manner as soldiers.

B)    The annexation of the liberated areas (Judea, Samaria, Gaza) by
 incorporating them into the State of Israel.  Full Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel, including the Temple Mount, and free Jewish settlement throughout the land.

        C)    Offering both the Arabs of the territories and those within the
pre-1967 Israel the choice of: 1) remaining in the land with full individual rights (cultural, social, religious, economic) but no national ones (they will not be citizens, will not vote, nor sit in the Knesset) as they recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, 2) leaving the country willingly with compensation for property or, 3) refusing both of the above and being removed from the land.

                D)    Dismantling the country’s present bureaucratic, government-
bobbled economy and introducing a free economy with private initiative, incentives to investors, and freedom from obsessive regulation and red tape.  The opportunity to make Israel an economic super-power lies down the road of free enterprise.

E)    A total overhaul of the country’s educational system to put an end
 to the disastrous ideological bankruptcy of the young Israeli who has little if any knowledge and emotional links with Zionism, Judaism, or Jewishness.  A curriculum that will include large doses of Jewish values and Jewish sources as well as Jewish national pride and Zionism, taught by ideologically competent teachers.

F)     The creation of a new state television and radio authority with
 positive values toward Judaism and Jewish nationalism.  An end to the deliberate distortions of the news and the undermining of national morale and values.

G)   The compulsory learning by every Jewish youngster of a manual
trade so as to recreate the Jewish worker that was the dream of Zionism and is the basis of any normal national economy and state. 

 At the end of four years, another referendum will be held to see if the people agree that the aims of the national emergency government have been achieved or if another four years will be needed.

The referendum will declare and mandate that, if approved the Knesset will be dissolved and a free election held within 30 days to elect one party with full and absolute powers and obligations to implement the program mandated by the referendum.  Any party or list will be eligible to run and be elected on condition that it pledge to full accept and fully implement the above program.

This will be the reply to the enemies of Israel who dream of its destruction.  This will be the reply to those within the State whose policies would destroy the Jewish body and eliminate the Jewish soul.

As World War II struck Great Britain with all the frightening implications of defeat, British democracy froze the democratic political system, suspended elections and major political rights.  It did so because Great Britain faced a threat to all that was dear to it.  How much more should Israel, faced with a threat to its very existence, not shrink from this.

And one can fairly taste the reaction of the demagogues of democracy to the above. On every high hill and under every leafy tree the declaimers of democracy cry out in well-rehearsed fury: This is a threat to democracy!

Ah, how shrill the squeal of the stuck, the bowl of the hypocrites of political history. They bemoan the threat to democracy. They warn against the treat to democracy.  The democracy that does not exist and that never really did in the state of heartbreak.  Israel.
 
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Friday, September 13, 2013

Repentence as a Nation: The Key to Redemption

 
“If you follow My statutes... I will bring peace in the Land... and if you do not listen to Me... I will bring upon you disaster” (Lev. 26:14, 16)
The Torah is Israel's strength. When they guard it, G-d strengthens them to overcome the nations, and only through that strength do the nations recognize Israel's might and submit to them peacefully. Now,... dear friend, heed a great principle for our age, when the Messiah's footsteps are so near. Place it over your eyes and heart – perhaps G-d will have mercy. The period in which Gog goes forth to war against Israel will be a terrible time of fear and dread on earth. If Israel are unworthy of redemption “in haste”, redemption devoid of terrible Messianic birthpangs, G-d in His great mercy, will try to delay, so as to avoid bringing the world redemption “ in its time”. Like a merciful father, G-d extends His deadline again and again in hopes of His children repenting and returning to Him, so that He, in turn, can return to them instantaneously, in glory and majesty.

Ponder my words well. Perhaps they will influence your emotions and understanding, dear reader, to hurry and cry out to our people, to tell them how to save themselves from awful, avoidable suffering. G-d said, “Oh that my people would hearken to Me and Israel walk in My ways – I would soon subdue their enemies” (Ps. 81:14-15). I have already explained that if Israel would only listen to G-d, He would bring redemption literally in a moment, for He is ready to take revenge on Gog and the nations instantaneously. G-d also said, “Oh that you had hearkened to My mitzvot! Your peace would then be like a river” (Isaiah 48:18) Avodah Zarah 5a teaches, “If only [hebr. 'im'] you would follow My statutes (Lev. 26:3): 'Im' can only connote supplication. It thus says, “Oh that My people would hearken to Me” and, “Oh that you had hearkened to My mitzvot!” G-d entreats Israel, so to speak, to repent and do acts of self-sacrifice, for only this will prove their faith and trust in G-d – and through such acts G-d will hasten redemption.Our sages said (Torat Kohanim, Bechukotai, Parsheta 1): “If only you would follow My statutes”: This teaches that G-d yearns for Israel to toil in Torah. It likewise says, “Oh that My people would hearken to Me”; “Oh that you had hearkened to My mitzvot!” and, “If only their hearts would remain this way, in awe of Me... for all time, so that it would go well with them and their children forever” (Deut. 5:26).

These verses surely refer to mitzvah observance, yet to bring redemption much more is required. The source continues: 'If only you would follow My statutes”: Might this refer to mitzvah observance? When the verse adds, “And be careful to keep My mitzvot” (Lev. 26:3), that connotes mitzvah observance. What then am I to learn from the first part of the verse? That we must toil in Torah.We learn a major principle here. G-d does not suffice with mere mitzvah observance. Rather, He demands toil, hard labor, even psychological grief. He demands that we keep the difficult mitzvot which require faith and trust in G-d. Generally, these are the chukim, the statutes, which are hard to fathom and which oppose the will of man, who is ensnared by his weak, limited intellect. G-d says, “If you would only follow My statutes.” If we follow the ways of the Torah, even regarding the difficult chukim; if we do not just study them mechanically but engage in difficult, discouraging toil, in faith and trust in G-d, which is what G-d yearns for, then He will bring redemption instantaneously.

G-d fiercely longs to sanctify His name, profaned daily by the nations, but He demands that Israel sanctify His name first through complete and perfect faith and trust in G-d. They must take hold of dangerous, frightening mitzvot which leave them isolated and alone, with the nations opposing them, for only this can prove their real trust in Him. Then, when they have sanctified His name in this way, He will go forth in His wrathful revenge against the nations who profane His name, and will thereby save both Israel and Himself, so to speak.

Thus, complete and perfect deeds of trust in G-d sanctify His name, blot out the terrible chilul Hashem inherently associated with fear of the nations, and pave the way for majestic redemption “in haste”. What, then, are these deeds? I shall enumerate them, dear friend, and you should engrave them on your hearts and proclaim them loudly in the streets to the Jewish People, before G-d's great and awesome punishment visits us, Heaven forbid!

1. Those Jews who dwell in the impure exile, thereby scorning the Pleasant Land and its holiness, profane G-d's name by their very habitation under the yoke and sovereignty of the nations. Through their dependency on the nations, they transform them and their false religion to masters over Israel, to whom Israel must lift their eyes. G-d will not bear this chilul Hashem. He will not tolerate the assimilation and the influence of the alien culture on Israel. These destroy their souls and introduce foreign thoughts into the Jewish People and their Torah.This conquest of Jewish bodies and souls is a chilul Hashem, and also prevents the Jewish People from being a chosen, special people who dwell alone in their holy, special land. G-d, therefore, decreed that Israel had to leave Egypt and go up to Eretz Yisrael, and that otherwise, it would be their burial place.The first exile is an omen for the last. G-d will not give in regarding Israel's scorning the Land. When it comes time for G-d to punish the nations for their sins, raining down upon them His wrath, He will “turn their hearts to hate His people, to scheme against His servants” (Ps. 105:25). All this will be in addition to the tragedy He will unleash upon all Jews who live among the nations, when He takes revenge on the nations for all their sins through the collapse of lands and peoples. G-d's liquidating the exile through Israel's leaving it and going up to Eretz Yisrael is a major part of His removing the chilul Hashem and sanctifying His name.

2. The impoverished regime, whose conception and birth occurred in the alien culture of the nations, and who denies the Torah of Moses, has refused to apply the authority and sovereignty of the people and G-d of Israel upon all parts of Eretz Yisrael for fear of the nations. This constitutes a chilul Hashem, a rebellion against and degradation of the holiness of Eretz Yisrael, large parts of which have remained under the control of the nations. A condition for complete redemption through Kiddush Hashem is control and sovereignty of the G-d and of the people of Israel over all portions of Eretz Yisrael in our hands.

3. For many hundreds of years, Jews lifted their eyes to the Holy Temple, about which was decreed, “Any alien who comes near shall die” (Num. 18:7). Here was the Holy of Holies where only the Kohen Gadol could enter once a year. The presence at this site of impure Ishmaelite heathens who wholeheartedly hate the Jewish People is blasphemy. The impoverished regime is handing over to the impure Ishmaelites ownership and authority over the Temple Mount and simultaneously preventing G-d's people, Israel, from ascending to the permissible places. Let all ears be spared hearing about this! For this shall Zion sit in sackcloth, in somber mourning. Could any chilul Hashem be more severe, more degrading? What can one say, knowing that the cause of all this is the heretics' fear of the nations and absolute lack of trust in G-d? Israel are turning the Divine blessing and kindness associated with the beginning of redemption, which are a Kiddush Hashem, into an unprecedented nightmare, a sordid, abominable chilul Hashem. G-d's wrath looms over us, and woe to the insult to our holy mountain! We bear a holy duty to remove the cursed Ishmaelites from the site of our Temple and to remove the disgrace of their mosques which daily anger G-d, if we hope to save our souls from the day of wrath.

4. The call of the hour is to “drive out all the Land's inhabitants” (Num. 33:52). Woe to us for having dealt treacherously with the Land and it's owner, G-d! Through our fear of the nations, we have refused to conquer the Land by banishing the enemies and revilers of Israel, the lowly Ishmaelites. How much innocent blood has been spilled in the Holy Land through murderers being allowed to remain in it!
G-d is imploring us, His beloved, chosen sons, to agree to accept what He desires to give us. The Messiah is knocking at our door, his footsteps can be heard in the streets, and the voice of the G-d of Israel calls: “Return to Me – the word of the L-rd of hosts – and I will return to you” (Zechariah 1:3). Hasten! Hurry! In glory! Today! At this very moment! “Today, if you hearken to His voice!” (Ps. 95:7). Yet if, G-d forbid, we miss our chance, and the moment arrives from which there is no turning back; if, Heaven forbid, G-d brings the last stage of redemption “in its time”, with Messianic birthpangs and tragedies the likes of which we have never known, then it will come, suddenly, out of the blue.

This is the choice, the only choice. All the rest is worthless and of no avail. Time is running out. The decision is in our hands.
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Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from 'The Jewish Idea' of Rav Meir Kahane, HY"D
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Sunday, September 8, 2013

The Chosen Land - 1974

THE CHALLENGE
RABBI MEIR KAHANE
Written in 1974
 
THE CHOSEN LAND
In the year 135 the Judean fortress of Bethar fell to the Roman legions of the Emperor Hadrian.  In a bloody confrontation tens of thousands fell.  The leader of the Judean revolt, the legendary “son of a star,” Bar Kochba, was found dead, and the people of Judea were scattered to the four corners of the earth, there to begin an Exile unprecedented in persecution, in stubborn survival, and in faith in return.
 
Hadrian, furious with the stubborn and rebellious people, undertook to totally eradicate their pernicious faith and to wipe out the memory of their nationhood and land.  Edicts were issued – accompanied by the death penalty in case of violation – forbidding the Jewish Sabbath to be observed, outlawing the circumcision of children, and banning the study of Torah.  Under the supervision of the procurator Rufus, the plow was drawn over the city of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount as a sign that Zion was forever buried and plans for a new city, Roman in form and pagan in character, were drawn up.  The name Jerusalem was erased and the new city called Aelia Capitolina.  A column was erected in honor of Hadrian, and memorials, temples, and statues dedicated to Roman, Greek, and Phoenician gods defiled the Holy Land.
 
One other thing was done.  The name of Judea, the home of the Jewish people, was changed to “Palestine”.  Had Hadrian suppressed this desire to erase the memory of Jews and their state, and not changed its name, it is conceivable that the Jews of Israel would be faced today with “Judean” terrorists.
 
The time has come to declare a policy for Israel and its Jewish supporters that clearly, loudly, and pointedly proclaims that there never was, there is not now, and there never will be such a thing as a “Palestine” people or state.  The Land of Israel, Eretz Yisroel, is the land of the Jewish people, and no one else’s in all its historical boundaries.  In the face of public and strident Arab hate and threats to destroy us totally, all those who live under the illusion that “compromise” will bring peace and security to Israel are either fools or knaves.
 
The only hope for the Jewish people to preserve their own state and existence, a right claimed by all peoples, is to hold on to every inch of the land they liberated in 1967, push with all their strength for a massive Jewish immigration and settlement in all parts of the land, and promote a program that will convince the hostile Arab minority both in the liberated lands and in the “little Israel” of pre-June 1967 that their own best interests would be served by emigrating to other lands.  Let us examine these points more carefully.
 
On a clear night more than three millennia ago, a man named Abraham stood in the desert and heard the voice of G-d say: “…Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever.  Unto the L-rd is the earth and all that is in it.”  The creator of the universe, who gives and takes away, gave unto his people the Land of Israel as theirs, alone and without reservation.  This is the Jewish claim to Israel.
 
Upon this claim the children of Israel returned from the slavery of Egypt to liberate the land and create their Kingdom.  Upon this claim they lived there for hundreds of years from the time of Joshua until the destruction of the first Temple.  Upon this claim they returned from their Babylonian exile to set up yet another Jewish state that survived hundreds of years more.
 
On this claim they wandered through two millennia of exile, never forgetting, daily repeating their claim to the land from which they were driven, surviving until political Zionism realized the vision that the believing Jew had kept alive.
 
There is a Jewish people, the same that began with Abraham.  There is a Jewish state, the home of that Jewish people from the time of the first divine promise.  This is the Jewish claim.  It is not a request.  It is not an offer.  It is not a plea.  It is a claim and it brooks no denial.  We have no home but Israel; we have no claim to any home but Israel.  But within this one small state, that claim is absolute.  The Land of Israel is the land of the Jewish people, whose claim to sovereignty over it – all of it – is clear and as ancient as G-d’s decision to grant hat sovereignty.
 
A “Palestine” people?  The concept is a contradiction in terms.  There is either a “Palestine” or a Land of Israel, and we declare for the latter.  There is no “Palestine” and if there is no “Palestine,” there is no “Palestine” people.  Arabs?  Yes.  Those Arabs who dwell and who dwelt for years within Eretz Yisroel are indeed part of the Arab people or nation and we respect and recognize that definition.  But, they are not “Palestinians” for there never was such a concept.  The Arabs who wandered into the Land of Israel while it lay desolate and empty of its exiled Jewish sons and daughters came as trespassers and interlopers.  The passage of time, no matter how much time, cannot make legal that which is illegal.  The claim of Arabs to have lived within the land for years or centuries is irrelevant in terms of a claim to Arab national sovereignty.  And how much more so when “Palestine” was always looked upon as nothing more than southern Syria. As individuals who arrived and lived in the Land of Israel while there was no Jewish state, they are free to live and prosper.  Under claim of national right, they are entitled to nothing.  Jews have a sovereign national right to the land as a people and under this, each Jew has a right to live in Israel.  The Arab, with no national sovereignty claim, may ask to be allowed to live in Eretz Yisrael, but can expect nothing more than that.
 
It is this most basic concept that gives Jews not only the right to their own state, but the right to a state within the entire boundaries of the Land of Israel.  Neither a fictitious “Palestine” nor a no less fictitious “Jordan” are anything more than interlopers within the boundaries of Eretz Yisroel.  To be sure, the Jewish leaders in 1947 reluctantly accepted a Jewish state whose boundaries were not only absurdities but enclosed only a small fraction of Eretz Yisroel.  Their acceptance of these boundaries in no way meant acquiescence in any foreign claim to parts of Eretz Yisroel but a willingness to accept a desperately needed state and a condition of peace.  Their motives were not acquiescence in or recognition of foreign claims, or the waiving of Jewish rights, but a desire for peace and a postponing of Jewish claims until the Messiah comes and resolves kushyot v’bayaot (problems and difficulties).
 
In return for peace and a genuine recognition of the Jewish right to a state, Jews were willing, not to give up their rights, but not to press for rightful claims.  But when the Arabs chose to deny any Jewish right and went to war, the Jewish claim to all the land that fell to its armies became clear.  What happened in 1948 and again in 1967 was that Jewish land returned to its people.  We do not seek war; one Jewish life is not worth all the Jewish land that is under foreign rule.  But when war is forced upon us and Jewish bodies fall, then the historic land that returns to us remains – never to be returned.
 
What is the Arab of Eretz Yisroel?  A human being, and we respect him for that and must treat him accordingly.  What else is he?  A member of the Arab nation, and we respect him for that. But he is no more than that: he is not a “Palestinian” belonging to a “Palestine” state, because both designations are fictitious.  The Jewish claim rests upon divine grant and historical continuity based on that grant, and even if there were no questions of security, the state and boundaries of that state would be Jewish for historical reasons alone.
 
Yet there is a security question, a question that goes to the heart of the existence of the Jewish state and the lives of its inhabitant.  This question of security concerns the liberated lands, the Arabs who live there, the Arabs of pre-1967 Israel and, indeed, the entire Arab-Israel conflict.  All of these problems from a security standpoint have given rise to a number of dangerous illusions that we must look at carefully and dispel.  We fail to do so at our own peril.
 
The first illusion can be stated as: “If only Israel shows ‘moderation,’ a willingness to ‘compromise’ and is prepared to make ‘concessions’ to the Arabs peace can be achieved.”
 
Anyone who thinks this way encourages the destruction of Israel.  Despite pious hopes and impious pressures, the fact remains that there will be no peace between Jews and Arabs so long as there remains a Jewish state of any kind, no matter how small.  Regardless of what concessions Israel might make to the Arabs – be they the modest concessions of a Golda Meir or the maximalist concessions of the Israeli Left – all of the land that is now Israel is considered by the Arabs to be part of “Palestine.”  There is no difference to the “Palestinian” between the soil of Hebron on the West Bank or that over which are build the Jewish costal villas of Herzliya and Savyon.  “Shehem (Nablus) is like Tel Aviv and Haifa and Jericho are both mine,” sayeth the Arab nationalist.  So long as there remains a Jewish state with the name of Israel, the Arabs will never agree to peace.  
 
If that is a depressing prognosis, far better for pundits to be depressed than for Israelis to succumb to false hopes and be exterminated.
 
 One finds it difficult to understand those who claim that a return of the lands liberated in 1967 will bring peace closer.  If that is the major drawback to peace in the Middle East, what in the world did Nasser want in 1967, when the Arabs had all the territory they now ask to be returned?  On June 4, 1967, as the Arab world was consuming itself in an orgy of hate and describing in intimate details what it was going to do when it captured Tel Aviv, all the areas it now wants returned as the price of “peace” – the Sinai, the Gaza strip, the West Bank of the Jordan, the Golan Heights – were in its hands.  What was the fight about then?  And what was the fight about in 1956 when Nasser, with Soviet aid, prepared to wipe out an Israel that was not sitting in Hebron and Sinai as it does today?  And what in heaven’s name did the Arabs want returned in 1948 when the United Nations Partition Plan created a grotesque and impossible Jewish state that encompassed a mere 13 percent of the land originally mandated by the League of Nations?  In all the wars that the Arabs forced upon the Jews since 1948, and indeed in all the terror and pogroms of the Arab nationalists since 1919, the aim was clear: no Jewish state at all.  This proposition, I put it, is unacceptable for the Jews of Israel.  Thus, without a change of Arab heart, which is nowhere to be seen, there will be no peace.
One laughs - but is not amused - at those who point to the statements made by certain Arabs that they are now willing to accept Israel's existence.  In the face of the volumes of hate, threats, and solemn oaths to wipe out Israel, what conceivable faith can be placed in such obviously politically motivated statements?
 
Having failed to wipe out Israel militarily and perceiving the need for world support, the Arabs must carefully, although temporarily, shelve the old truths and present a more modest and balanced image.  "Throw the Jews into the sea?  Heaven forbid!  All we seek is a return of what is ours."  It is an unfunny joke.  The clear fact remains that even if an Arab leader exists who would seriously accept the existence of Israel, he would not  long survive the signing of a pact and the pact would not long survive him.
 
Any pull back by Israel to the impossibly dangerous border of June 1967 would be followed by a denunciation of the peace agreement by Arab opposition elements and Israel would be faced with a fait accompli accompanied by at least three days of world sympathy.
 
Concessions?  Compromise?  Moderation?  Foolish exercises in self-delusion and self-destruction so long as the Arab believes - as he does - that Israel is a bandit state and that the Jews have stolen "Palestine." 
 
It is because we - more than the Jewish leftists and liberals - understand and respect the reality of Arab nationalism, that we realize the futility of expecting the nationalist to give up his dream.  Would we lose our hope?  Neither will the Arab nationalist.
   
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