A Right to Exist
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A strong recommendation to stop using the phrase “Israel’s right to exist”.
There is a catch-phrase constantly being bandied about by news
people, which never fails to make my blood boil. It is
“Israel’s Right to exist.” The term is even used by well-
intentioned friends and worse yet – by some of our own tactless
people! This offensive expression should be expunged from the
vocabulary of anyone who is (or pretends to be) a friend of
Israel.
The nation of Israel existed in its own land thousands of years
before Muhammad was even a gleam in his father’s eye.
Continued
Jewish residence
in the Land of Israel (Zion, in the Bible)
continued throughout the 2 millennia of exile that followed the
Roman conquest. When Jews from Europe and elsewhere began
to return to the land of their ancestors in the late 19th
century, it was to a wasteland, a virtually uninhabited
backwater province of the Ottoman empire. My own grandfather
settled in Rosh Pina, a small village near the Syrian border,
in 1882.
Against all odds, and by virtue of hard work and perseverance,
those people, called Zionists, recreated Israel. It grew and
prospered, in spite of the British Mandate authority’s
restrictions, and constant attacks by marauding Arab bandits.
Impoverished peoples from neighboring Arab countries began to
come to Palestine (as it was called under the British) to
benefit from new economic opportunities created by the Jewish
community. As both sectors grew and prospered, peaceful
coexistence was taken for granted. My father, born in Rosh-
Pina in 1901, had many Arab friends who visited our home, as
we visited theirs. Under a French-installed Christian
Maronite-dominated leadership, Lebanon to the north became
the “Switzerland of the Middle East”, with its progressive
banking system and thriving tourist industry.
One of the chief Arab troublemakers in 1930’s Palestine was
the “Grand Mufti” of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The
British eventually exiled him, as the clouds of the WWII
began gathering. He went to Germany, where he became an
advisor to the Nazis on Jewish questions, and was even
photographed at Hitler’s side. It was Hitler’s plan to
confiscate all Jewish property and exile the Jews to
Palestine, but the Mufti convinced him that killing them
would be a better solution to “The Jewish Problem”.
Jewish refugees from Nazism joined the Yishuv, the Jewish
community in Eretz Israel, which numbered some 600,000 at
the outbreak of the war. The British allowed some survivors
of the Holocaust to trickle in, but even more were smuggled
in between the end of the war and the November, 1947 UN
resolution establishing the State of Israel in May, 1948.
The combined forces of all neighboring Arab states promptly
attacked Israel, and were defeated as they were time and
time again. Even as these lines are written, Israel is
again forced to assert its sovereignty over its land, by
rooting out Arafat’s terrorists. Arafat was a direct heir
to the Mufti’s legacy, as was Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who
openly professed his admiration of Hitler. Arafat’s heirs
today adhere to the same “policy”.
So please, let’s hear no more about a “Right to Exist!”
Israel has never ceased to exist, and it will survive all
adversity.
The author served in the Hagana, in the Royal Air Force in
WWII, and in the Israel Defense Forces during the War of
Liberation (1948/9). He is the author of several books,
including “Zion Liberated”, a historical biography set in
pre-State Israel.
7 Comments
Well written article!
I’ll continue to use the phrase “Israel’s right to exist,” because it is true. Israel has a right to exist.
It seems to me your arguing to the converted. You have to understand that there are an awful lot of idiots out there who buy the argument that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist. Among them is a man named Tony Judt, who writes for the New York Times.
As long as there are idiots arguing that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist, I will argue that they do, just as every other nation has a right to exist.
You can’t supercede arguments, which are excepted in the current popular paradigm, simply by ignoring them.
For arguments sake:
There is no “right to exist.” Existence is a state (of being). You either exist or you don’t. If you do (exist) you either become proficient at remaining in existence or you perish. Such is the way of the world.
Rights pre-exist (as they were created by God or at least He had them before you did!) “being” (existing) but once you “are” you have (God given) rights, including the right to self-defense used to remain in “existence.”
Bravo! I could not agree more. The phrase “Israel’s right to exist” should be replaced with the phrase “Israel’s duty to protect her citizens”.
I couldn’t agree more. Israel will never be “taken off the map” because Hashem is on its side. I greatly admire brave people like you who act in line with His very Word. Nevertheless, you should never underestimate your enemies who will try their best to destroy you, but The God of Israel will always be your rear Guard even when all nations will turn against you. Your generation is very special…all who are interested to find out why may read “It Might Be Final Countdown for Israel and The Rest of the World”, and it is not the countdown to destruction, but to truly lasting peace.
Hey, Globus, do you want to know why the term “Israel’s right to exist” is out there? Because Israel suffered attempts to eliminate it since day one. It’s a valid part of our political vocabulary and a needed part to. Israel does have a right to exist. In fact, it’s even more valid than the term “Israeli occupation.” Globus, wake up. Look at the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It began decades before Israel supposed occupation and its “illegal” settlements. The goal of destroying Israel and the terrorism by these evil barbarians is the cause of the conflict. So, the term “right to exist” should continue to be used.
Great article! I agree with you.