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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