This incident occurred in Israel, during a speech by Peres. The confusing part is that I am left wondering why I was so startled by the comment. For decades, Peres and his subordinates, most recently Yossi Beilin, have shown that the condition of the world's Jews, and their connection with Israel, are of no importance to them. Beilin's remark to a Hadassah-WIZO meeting in Jerusalem that "we don't need your charity", left many members of the organization wondering what purpose there is in supporting Israel any longer. That this remark caused Prime Minister Rabin to call Beilin a moron shows only that Rabin still has some of his mental faculties left.
Perhaps, though, what startled me most about Peres's comment was the absolute lack of knowledge of Jewish history that it betrayed. For where else do Jews come from than Israel? What purpose is there in Israel remaining strong, secure, and in existence at all, if not for us to return to our homeland?
There's the rub. For Peres, Beilin, et al do not recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland. They do not realize that we have a history in this land. This monumental ignorance is so deep that in late September, 1993, Shimon Peres was interviewed on Kol Yisrael's English Language news program. When asked how he felt shaking Arafat's hand, he replied, "You know, we say Hayadayim Yedai Yaacov (the hands are the hands of Jacob)."
This response represents the final renunciation of all Jewish history by the so-called leaders of the Jewish State. For nearly one hundred years, Arabs of the Middle East have been trying to reverse history. They have claimed a Jewish holocaust against the Arabs when no such thing has ever taken place. They have claimed the Right of Return, and have used United Nations Resolution 194 to bolster that claim. They have begun referring to Palestinians living outside of Israel as "the Diaspora", and have abused virtually all Israeli and Jewish historical symbols, portraying them as their own. This is especially true of the Jewish homeland.
But, of course, once Jewish history is renounced, there is no longer any such thing as the Jewish homeland. Thus, the mad rush to give Palestinian terrorists all that they ask. For Jews and Israel have no common history about which to worry in any case. This is what we hear from our foreign minister.
What Peres and Beilin do not recognize, however, is that not only do Jews and the land of Israel share a history, but this history is most prevalent in the areas of Judea and Samaria. For it was these provinces that, together with what is now Western Jordan, constituted the Jewish homeland in the first place. Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Ashkelon and Ashdod, Eilat, and the southern Negev were not part of the original Jewish State. At its largest, in the time of Solomon, the Jewish State did include these areas as well as most of Jordan, and parts of Syria and Lebanon.
When the Jewish state was re-incarnated, it was done so out of a small fraction of the lands allotted to it in the Balfour Declaration. Balfour included all of Israel, including Judea and Samaria, and all of Jordan in his promise.
At no time since the destruction of the Second Temple, did anyone claim sovereignty over the land of Israel, other than as a backwater province of a larger imperial sphere. Jerusalem was never a national capital for anyone other than the Jews, until the Jews started returning a hundred years ago. Then, all of a sudden, in the 1920's, Palestinian Arabs started claiming Jerusalem as their capital, in another attempt at reversing Jewish history to suit their own desires.
In 1948, during Israel's War of Independence, David Ben-Gurion demanded that Jerusalem be defended for the express reason that if Jerusalem were lost, the Jewish citizens of Israel would lose all morale and will to keep fighting.
Now, we have a foreign minister, and various other officials in the Israeli government, who do not see all the history entwined in this land. These people are offering the historical Jewish heartland, together with the 3000-year-old Jewish capital, as ransom for a promise that has already been broken in all its aspects.
Perhaps, Peres was correct in his assumption. "The hands are the hands of Jacob" that have brought food from the wasteland of Israel. And the voice is the voice of Esau that promises peace and acceptance of Israel.
Copyright 1994. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
