THEY MUST GO – written in 1980, printed in 1981
RABBI MEIR KAHANE
But There is a G-d in Israel (excerpts)
The analysis and proposed transfer of Arabs from Israel that I have set down are not personal views. They are certainly not political ones. This is the Jewish outlook, based on halakah the law as postulated in the Torah.The removal of all Arabs who refuse to accept the exclusive, unquestioned Jewish sovereignty over Eretz Yisrael is not only logical and normal for any Jew with a modicum of an instinct for self-preservation; it is also the Jewish halakic obligation. It is important that we know this in order to realize what true “Jewishness” really dictates and in order to instill in ourselves the faith and assurance that if we do this, all the nations in the world will be incapable of harming Israel.
The Jewish people are not merely one more nation. “Though I put an end to all the nations among whom thou art scattered, but I will never put an end to thee” (Jeremiah 30:11). Israel is indestructible. It is unique, it is holy, it is the Chosen of the L-rd; it has a reason for being. Its national uniqueness is built on an idea, on an ideology, that it alone has. The Jew is selected and obligated to be a religio-nation, commanded to obey the laws and follow the path of Torah. The covenant. The Jewish people took upon itself the yoke of the L-rd, acknowledging Him as G-d and observing His laws. The Almighty chose them as His unique people, pledging that they would be indestructible and would live in peace and prosperity in their own land, Eretz Yisrael.
The land was given as a reward, as a blessing. But it is more, much more, than that. The people of Israel have more than a right to the land; they have an obligation. “For you shall pass over the Jordan to go in to possess the Land which the L-rd your G-d gives you, and you shall possess it and dwell therein” (Deuteronomy 11:31).
A unique people given, uniquely, a particular land. Unlike all the other faiths that are not limited to one special country, the Jew is given a particular land and commanded to live there. And for a reason, as Moses explains: “Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the L-rd, my G-d, commanded me, that you shall do so in the Land whither you go to possess it. (Deuteronomy 4:5).
It is impossible to create a holy, unique people that dwells as a minority within lands that belong to others. The majority culture must infiltrate, influence, corrupt, woo, tempt, pervert. The Jew is commanded to create for himself a holy nation, and that can only be done free of others, separate, different, apart. That is why the unique nation, chosen for holiness and unique destiny, was given a land for itself: so that it might create a unique, holy society that would be a light unto the nations who would see its example and model.
And as the Torah clearly commanded: And you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you…But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come to pass that those which you let remain of them, shall be thorns in your eyes and thistles in your sides and shall torment you in the land wherein you dwell. And it shall be that I will do to you as I thought to do to them” (Numbers 3:52-56).
Far better than foolish humans did the Almighty understand the dangers inherent in allowing a people that believed the land belonged to it to be given free and unfettered residence, let along ownership, proprietorship, citizenship. What more natural thing than to ask to regain that it believed to be rightly its own land? And this over and above the need to create a unique and distinctly separate Torah culture that will shape the Jewish people into a holy nation. That “uniqueness” can be guaranteed only by the non-Jew’s having no sovereignty, ownership, or citizenship in the state that could allow him to shape its destiny and character.
This is Torah. This is Jewishness. Not the dishonest pseudo “Judaism” chanted by the Liberal secularists who pick and choose what “Judaism” finds favor in their eyes and who reject what their own gentilized concepts find unacceptable. They weigh “Judaism” on the scales of their own intellectual arrogance – arrogance, incidentally, of intense ignorance.
And if this is not only the right of Jews but their obligation, what do we fear? Why do the Jews tremble and quake before the threat of the nations? Is there no longer a G-d in Israel? Have we lost our bearings that we do not understand the ordained historical role of the State of Israel, a role that ensures that it can never be destroyed and that no further exile from it is possible? Why is it that we do not comprehend that it is precisely our refusal to deal with the Arabs according to halakic obligation that will bring down on our heads terrible sufferings, whereas our courage in removing them will be one of the major factors in the hurrying of the final redemption?
What is wrong with us? Who blinded us and blocked from our memories the existence and power of the G-d of Israel? Did a Jewish people exist for 2,000 years without state, government, or army, wandering the earth interminably from land to land, suffering pogroms and Holocaust and surviving powerful empires that disappeared into history, just by coincidence? Did a Jewish people return to its land from the far corners of the earth to set up its own sovereign state – exactly as promised in the Bible – through mere natural means? What other nation ever did such a thing? Where are the Philistines of Goliath today? Where is imperial Rome with its Latin and its gods? Who defeats armies in six days, and on the seventh they rest?
Who if not an Israel because there is a G-d in it! The Land of Israel is His divine Land; the State of Israel is His divine hand. History is not a series of random events, disjointed and coincidental. There is a Creator, a Guide, a Hand that plans and directs. There is a scenario to history. The Jew has come home for the third and last time. “But the third shall be left therein” (Zechariah 13:8). The first redemption was that from Egypt; the second, the redemption of Ezra. The third will never end” (Tanhuma, Shoftim 9).
We live in the era of the footsteps of the Messiah, the beginning of the final redemption. The rise of the State of Israel from the ashes of Auschwitz marks the end of the night of black humiliation and agony, of Hillul Hashem, and the beginning of the dawn of the final, total redemption, of Kiddush Hashem, sanctification of G-d’s name. The State of Israel is not a “political” creation. It is a religious one No power could have prevented its birth and none can destroy it. It is the beginning of G-d’s wrath, vengeance against the nations who ignored, disdained, and humiliated Him, who found Him irrelevant, who “knew Him not.” But, it is only the beginning. How the final redemption will come, and when, depends on the Jews.
The exiles shall be ingathered only through “faith” (Mechilta, Exodus). If we have it, if we truly believe in the existence of the Creator and Guider of history, the G-d of Israel, we can bring the final redemption today. “When will the Messiah come? ‘Today, as it is said: “Today, if you will hearken unto my voice’” (Psalms 95:7, Sanhedrin 98a).
The Arabs of Israel represent Hillul Hashem in its starkest form. Their rejection of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel despite the covenant between the L-rd of Israel and the Jews constitutes a rejection of the sovereignty and kingship of the L-rd G-d of Israel. Their transfer from the Land of Israel thus becomes more than a political issue. It is a religious issue, a religious obligation, a commandment to erase Hillul Hashem. Far from fearing what the Gentile will do if we do such a thing, let the Jew tremble as he considers the anger of the Almighty if we do not.
Tragedy will be ours if we do not move the Arabs out. The great redemption can come immediately and magnificently if we do that which G-d demands. One of the great yardsticks of real Jewish faith in this time of momentous decision is our willingness to reject fear of man in favor of awe of G-d and remove the Arabs from Israel.
The world? The nations – united or otherwise? What do they matter before the omnipotence of the Almighty?
“Why do the nations rage…the Kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together, against the L-rd and against His anointed…He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the L-rd shall mock them…” (Psalms 2:1-4). The Jewish people and state cannot be destroyed. Their weapon is their G-d. That is reality
Let us remove the Arabs from Israel and bring the redemption.
THEY MUST GO.
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