Immediately upon Israel’s astounding victory, the State of Israel’s leaders began making mistake after mistake with the miraculous gift they had been handed. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan famously handed the keys of the Temple Mount to the Muslim Waqf, allowing them to maintain freedom of worship on the Mount. This developed into a situation where today, 40 years later, the Waqf believes it is the sovereign power over the Temple Mount. Its teams work tirelessly to destroy and remove any remaining vestige of the once-proud Jewish history attached to the place. And Jewish people are allowed onto the Mount only in small groups at a time – if at all.
The cities of Hevron and Shchem have been all but totally given over to Arab residency, even as they contain the second holiest site to Jews, and even as they contain the other two places in Israel for which a record exists of Jewish purchase (the third being the Temple Mount itself).
Jewish communities have blossomed in Judea and Samaria during the past 40 years. But they have done so in a piecemeal fashion, usually despite the best efforts of consecutive governments to block their construction or halt their development. These communities, for the most part, remain small rural outposts, exposed to terrorist attack. They are portrayed far and wide as a security burden, placing IDF forces in danger’s way for the sake of a few dozen “settlers” here or there.
The Six Day War was undoubtedly a turning point in Jewish history. It marked the point where the Jews finally were able to shake off the constant threat of our enemies and show the world our true modern strength. But the one thing no Jewish leader then or since has been able to transform into conventional wisdom is that this victory, this turning point, was a G-d given gift.
The Six Day War could have heralded the completion of the Jewish ingathering in the Land of Israel. If Israel’s leaders had shown the same courage, the same vision, and the same unyielding determination to take Israel’s destiny in its own hands, we could have been celebrating this week with a completely Jewish state from the Jordan to the Sea. We could have been celebrating a hard-won peace without the threats that terrorism poses not only to Israel, but to the entire world. We could have once and for all vanquished our enemies.
If Israel’s leaders of the day had taken the courageous steps of building and developing in Judea and Samaria just as they did in the Galilee, and the rest of the country in the previous 80 years, the entire region today would have been a verdant paradise of Jewish communities, industrial growth, educational and business opportunities, and economic power – just as the pre-67 areas of Israel are.
But the Six Day War, for all of its miracles, for all the heady aura of invincibility and victory that it brought with it, was the turning point that ushered in an era of failed vision, failed leadership, failed military adventures and a sense of defeatism among Israel’s population.
Two weeks ago, the Winograd Commission issued an interim report on last Summer’s Lebanon War. The report was devoted to exposing the failures of Israel’s political and military establishment in planning, execution, decision-making, supply, tactics, and all other aspects of leading a nation in wartime. It exposed the folly of Israeli military withdrawal in the face of terrorism – from Lebanon and by extension from Gaza, Judea and Samaria. For those willing to see it, the report exposed a system of faulty leadership, faulty decision-making, and faulty vision, among the Israeli political and military leadership in general – a kind of false conception shared by every branch of the Israeli leadership for decades – which enabled the kind of failures we saw last Summer.
This conception is the child of the serious errors in judgment made by the Israeli leadership in the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War. Israel’s failure to accept the gift it was given and to use that gift to its fullest potential created the situation in which we find ourselves today.
A week ago, former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon described the futility that currently characterizes much of Israel’s internal debate. “We argue over what the solution is, but we still haven't agreed on what the problem is.”
Ya’alon is right. But even Ya’alon doesn’t know what the real problem is. The real problem is the idea that Israel must concede something in order to emerge with a better situation. This idea has taken such a stranglehold on Israeli thinking that most Israeli leaders are prepared to outline – even before being elected – what they will be willing to offer in negotiations. 84% of Israel’s population does not believe there is a chance to reach peace with the Palestinians according to a recent poll. Yet 57% of them support negotiations with the Palestinians. The need to make concessions is so deep-seated it has become an end unto itself. If only we make one more try, perhaps we can solve the problem.
But the problem is not terrorism. The problem is not an intractable foe rubbing its hands with glee at the next possible concession. The problem is not poverty or international acceptance.
The problem is the Israeli conception that we must be the ones to make concessions. The problem is the Jewish guilt we collectively feel at actually having won a war for our survival 40 years ago. The problem is that we have not yet learned to accept the gift and use it to our fullest benefit. The problem is that 40 years ago, we took an open miracle and refused to believe in its source or in its purpose.
This week, when I celebrate the unification of Jerusalem and the return of Hevron, Shchem and Shilo, I will be celebrating the miracles G-d bestows upon us. I will recite the prayer of Hallel with a tremendous appreciation for all that G-d does for us in this Land. And I will thank G-d for the Grace He has shown us in allowing us to live in this Land, in this city and in this time. For only through such realization and appreciation of all that we have been given will we stand any chance of knowing how to hold on to it.
Copyright 2007. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission of the author only.
