January 12, 2001

"Not Tel Aviv - But Jerusalem"

Four hundred thousand people joined in a rally to support Israel's sovereignty of Jerusalem, a Kiddush Hashem.  It was an extraordinary manifestation of love and devotion.  Even the late Leah Rabin, an avowed peace process advocate, would have been proud.  Shortly before her death, she publicly criticized Barak for his wanting to divide Jerusalem and attempting to give its eastern half to the Arabs.  But what comes next?

Arafat discovered Israel's vulnerability on the day Barak ran from Lebanon without a moment's notice.  If Hizbollah's terrorists could successfully use violence to force Israel out of its security zone in Southern Lebanon, the Palestinians could do the same in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and eventually the rest of Israel.  We are now into the fifth month since the Palestinian Authority initiated its so-called intifada, a terror campaign against Israel.  With guns pointed against Jews cowered by stone-throwing boys, Barak began a mad pursuit of the Arabs, offering them even more than he did at Camp David. . .a calamitous lack of judgment and common sense. 

David Makovsky, writing in U.S. News and World Report, offers an excellent psychological profile of Ehud Barak.  According to Makowsky, Barak was most successful as head of a special unit at the IDA.  This unit is a "James Bond type" of commandos and intelligence specialists, with each operative making his own decisions and doing it in a flash.  I could now better understand Israel's incumbent Prime Minister, but using commando experience serves well militarily, but foolishly dangerous in government and politics, most especially when negotiating the destiny of the Jewish people and Israel's security. 

Failing to understand the politic, rather than the Jewish religious and emotional commitment to Jerusalem, was a major failure of Barak's leadership. Israel's left long ago refused to recognize the Jewish claim to the land, and Barak impulsively acted along those lines.  Let me explain.

Abba Eban, in Israel's early years, was its most eloquent spokesperson.  Eban made the case for Israel's right to the land and statehood based upon homestead principles:  Jews, he said, lived upon this land and thus had a right to it.  I spent several hours in conversation with Eban a number of years ago, and  challenged him to explain why he never referred  to the ancient and continuing religious commitment and deep biblical roots Jews have in this land as our right to the land.  Eban threw his hands up and said, "We are a secular state in a secular world.  Religion must never be a part of our defense." 

"But," I argued, "denying the religious root and biblical tie is a rejection of historic fact." Eban was guilty of major error.  The Jewish biblical tie to the land is our legitimate deed to all that begins in Metula and ends at the mouth of the Red Sea in the South.

We are called Jews because we are Judeans, subjects of the Judean nation begun by David.  Since the day when the Judean king brought the Holy Ark from Hebron to Jerusalem, we became known as Jews in every language and to all people.  From then on, we were no longer referred to as Israelites or Hebrews.  Being known as a Jew tied us to the Judean capital and the city of David, its founder, known from the days of Abraham as Jerusalem.

But Israel's secularists initially established Tel Aviv as the capital of the new Jewish state.  Ben Gurion, though a moderate secular socialist, quickly recognized the folly of this idea and moved the Knesset to Jerusalem's King George Street, realizing that without Jerusalem, there was little legitimacy to Israel's claim to the land.  Four and one-half billion people on earth–three billion Christians and almost one and one-half billion Moslems–consider the Torah as the base for their religious beliefs.  Invalidating the Jewish biblical tie to this land delegitimizes their own faith and beliefs.  Giving sovereignty of the ancient city and the Temple Mount to Arabs might be a practical solution for peace (as if the Arabs want peace), but we would eventually get "caught up" in a disastrous quandary–we would lose our valid link to the past and our biblical deed to the land. 

Yes, we face grave danger in persisting in our claim of ownership to all of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.  Refusing to negotiate the sovereignty of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount could, however, lead to all-out war,  causing death and tragedy to thousands of Jews, resulting in eventual defection and economic calamity. 

Argue all you want that the Arabs really never cared about Jerusalem, and when they had full control over the city, they let it fall to ruin and sought to  destroy every sign of its Jewish character.  They went so far as to remove tomb stones from the Mountain of Olives and made latrines with some of them, a strong argument that few, if any, will pay attention to.  

Are there solutions?  I believe creative minds, not the impulsivity of Barak, can find them.  I will discuss some suggestions next week.