Conclusion:
But There Is a G-d In Israel
The analysis and proposed transfer of Arabs from Israel that I have set
down are not personal views. They are certainly not political ones. This is
the Jewish outlook, based on halakhah, the law as postulated in the Torah.
The removal of all Arabs who refuse to accept the exclusive,
unquestioned Jewish sovereignty over Eretz Yisrael is not only logical and
normal for any Jew with a modicum of an instinct for self-preservation; it
is also the Jewish halakhic obligation. It is important that we know this in
order to realize what true "Jewishness" really dictates and in order to
instill in ourselves the faith and assurance that if we do this, all the
nations in the world will be incapable of harming Israel.
The Torah viewpoint on the status of non-Jews in Eretz Yisrael is part
of a total viewpoint on the very nature of the Jewish people and of the
Land of Israel. Of necessity, it opens up the questions: What is a Jew?
Why the Land of Israel? What is the relationship of Jew to Gentiles? In
the eyes of Judaism, Jewish nationalism, as such, is meaningless. What,
after all, is the logic behind a separate nation, flag, parliament, defense
system? Why set up barriers between people? What nonsense is the
national anthem that glorifies one people that is, in essence, no different
from another? Nationalism is, at best, foolish. At worst, it leads to hatred,
to division, to war. There is no special meaning to the Jewish people if it
is merely one more of the myriad of nations. In that case, the fate of the
Jew is like the fate of the Moabite or Canaanite or Finn or Turk. The
Jewish people can then exist, evolve, and die out. Its disappearance from
the world scene is then as possible, and as probable, as that of all the other
ancients who were Jewish contemporaries in biblical times and are long
since gone.
But the Jewish people is not merely one more nation. "Though I put
an end to all the nations among whom thou art scattered, but I will never
put an end to thee" (Jeremiah 30:11). Israel is indestructible. It is unique,
it is holy, it is the Chosen of the L-rd; it has a reason for being. Its
national uniqueness is built on an idea, on an ideology, that it alone has.
That is, indeed, reason to be different. The Jew is selected and obligated
to be a religio-nation, commanded to obey the laws and follow the path of
Torah. Through sacred covenants, first with each of the three Patriarchs,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then with the entire nation standing at
Mount Sinai and listening to the voice of the Alm-ghty, the Jewish people
was born: "Now therefore, if you will surely obey My voice and observe
My covenant, then you shall be unique unto Me above all the nations, for
all the earth is Mine. And you shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and
a holy nation" (Exodus 19:5-6).
The covenant. The Jewish people took upon itself the yoke of the Lrd, acknowledging him as G-d and observing His laws. The Alm-ghty
chose them as His unique people, pledging that they would be
indestructible and would live in peace and prosperity in their own land,
Eretz Yisrael.
Eretz Yisrael. "Unto thy seed have I given this land from the river of
Egypt unto the great river, the River Euphrates" (Genesis 15:18).
The land was given as a reward, as a blessing. But it is more, much
more, than that. The people of Israel have more than a rightXo the land;
they have an obligation. "For you shall pass over the Jordan to go in to
possess the Land which the L-rd your G-d gives you, and you shall
possess it and dwell therein" (Deuteronomy 11:31).
A unique people given, uniquely, a particular land. Unlike all the
other faiths that are not limited to one special country, the Jew is given a
particular land and commanded to live there. And for a reason, as Moses
explains: "Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the
L-rd, my G-d, commanded me, that you shall do so in the Land whither
you go to possess if (Deuteronomy 4:5)
It is impossible to create a holy, unique people that dwells as a
minority within lands that belong to others. The majority culture must
infiltrate, influence, corrupt, woo, tempt, pervert. The Jew is commanded
to create for himself a holy nation, and that can only be done free of
others, separate, different, apart. That is why the unique Jewish nation,
chosen for holiness and a unique destiny, was given a land for itself: so
that it might create a unique, holy society that would be a light unto the
nations who would see its example and model.
Such a state is reserved to the nation to which it was given for its
particular goal and destiny. It was taken from nations - the Canaanites - in
order that the Jew fulfill his obligatory destiny.
The L-rd, Creator and Proprietor of the world - all the lands are His.
He took that which was His from the Canaanites and gave it to His
Chosen People Israel. "And He gave them the lands of the nations and
they inherited the lands of the people, so that they would observe His
statutes and guard His laws ..." (Psalms 105:44-45). The right of the
Jewish people to the land is not based on human favors or historical
residence. It is a title granted by the Builder and Owner. Clearly, it was
not taken from one set of nations in order that others share it with the
Jews. The land was given to serve the Jewish people so that they have a
distinct, separate place in which to fulfill their obligation. There can be
no others who freely live there, let alone share sovereignty and ownership.
To allow such a thing is to invite both military attack and spiritual
assimilation, and thus to destroy and put an end to that unique Torah
society for which the Land of Israel was given to the Jews.
This is so for all non-Jews. Any grant to them of citizenship that
implies ownership and a right to shape the destiny and character of the
state destroys the uniqueness and entire purpose of giving the land to
Israel. It invites spiritual assimilation and eventually demands for political
autonomy.
How much more so for the non-Jewish residents of the land who lived
there before the L-rd gave it to the Jews. Those residents refuse to
recognize such a fact. They believe the land to be theirs and will dream of
the day when they will regain it. To allow them to remain as proprietors,
or even freely living with restrictions, is to ensure not only the general
spiritual assimilation that is threatened by any large number of non-Jews,
but also the threat of revanchist political and military attack.
So basic and important is this concept that as the Jews prepared to
cross the Jordan into the Land of Israel, as the waters rose to enormous
heights and the Children of Israel rapidly crossed to the other side, as
they were in the middle of the now-dry riverbed, suddenly Joshua paused
and spoke to them. What was so vital that could not wait until they had
225
crossed safely to the other side? What had to be said now, in the middle of
the Jordan, as the waters piled higher and higher?
"While still in the Jordan, Joshua said to them: Know why you are
crossing the Jordan! In order that you drive out the inhabitants of the
Land from before you as it is written (Numbers 33:52): 'And you shall
drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you.' If you do this -
it shall be good. If not - the waters shall come and inundate me and you"
(Talmud, Sota 34a).
Nothing was more urgent than this message, for allowing the nations
of the Land of Israel to remain there freely was to invite physical and
spiritual threats, military or political efforts on the part of bitter, angry
revanchist people to regain the land, spiritual and cultural assimilation,
and disintegration of the uniqueness of the special society that the Jew
was commanded to build.
And as the Torah clearly commanded: "And you shall drive out all the
inhabitants of the land from before you. ... But if you will not drive out
the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come to pass that
those which you let remain of them, shall be thorns in your eyes and
thistles in your sides and shall torment you in the land wherein you dwell.
And it shall be that I will do to you as I thought to do to them" (Numbers
33:52-56).
The biblical commentators are explicit: "And you shall drive out the
inhabitants and then you shall inherit it, you will be able to exist in it.
And if you do not, you will not be able to exist in it" (Rashi - Rabbi
Shiomo Yitzchaki).
"When you shall eliminate the inhabitants of the land, then you shall
be privileged to inherit the land and pass it down to your children. But if
you do not eliminate them, even though you will conquer the land you
will not be privileged to hand it down to your children" (Sforno - Rabbi
Ovadiah ben Yaakov).
"... The verse speaks of others aside from the seven Canaanite nations.
... Not only will they hold that part of the land that you did not possess,
but even concerning that part which you did possess and settle in - they
will distress you and say: Rise and get out ..." (Ohr Ha'Chayim - Rabbi
Chaim ben Atar).
And so, the Talmud tells us: "Joshua sent three messages to the
inhabitants [of Canaan]. He who wishes to evacuate - let him evacuate;
who wishes to make peace - let him make peace; to make war - let him
make war" (Vayikra Rabah 17).
The choices are given. Either leave, or prepare for war - or make
peace. The choice of "making peace" is explained by the rabbis as
involving three things. To begin with, the non-Jew must agree to adopt
the seven basic Noahide laws, which include prohibitions against idolatry,
blasphemy, immorality, bloodshed, robbery, eating flesh cut from a living
animal, and a positive action -- adherence to social laws. Once he has done
this, he has the status of a resident stranger (ger toshav) who is allowed to
live in Eretz Yisrael (Talmud, Avoda Zara 64b), if he also accepts the
conditions of tribute and servitude. (It should be noted that the use of the
word ger ["stranger"] in the Torah refers invariably not to the non-Jewish
stranger, but to the convert to Judaism.)
Biblical commentator Rabbi David Kimchi (Radak) explains (Joshua
9:7): "If they uproot idolatry and accept the seven Noahide laws, they
must also pay tribute and serve Israel and be subjects under them, as it is
written (Deuteronomy 20:11): They will be tribute and shall serve you.'“
Maimonides (Hilchot Mlachim 6:11) declares: "If they make peace
and accept the seven Noahide laws we do not kill them for they are
tributary. If they agreed to pay tribute but do not accept servitude or
accepted servitude but not tribute we do not acquiesce until they have
accepted both. And servitude means that they shall be humble and low
and not raise their head in Israel. Rather they shall be subjects under us
and not be appointed to any position over Jews ever.”
Far better than foolish humans did the Alm-ghty understand the
dangers inherent in allowing a people that believed the land belonged to it
to be given free and unfettered residence, let alone ownership,
proprietorship, citizenship. What more natural thing than to ask to regain
what it believed to be rightly its own land? And this over and above the
need to create a unique and distinctly separate Torah culture that will
shape the Jewish people into a holy nation. That "uniqueness" can be
guaranteed only by the non-Jew's having no sovereignty, ownership, or
citizenship in the state that could allow him to shape its destiny and
character. And so, concerning any non-Jew, Maimonides says: "'Thou
shall not place over thyself a stranger who is not of your brethren'
(Deuteronomy 17:15). Not only a king, but the prohibition is for any
authority in Israel. Not an officer in the armed forces ... not even a public
official in charge of the distribution of water to the fields. And there is no
need to mention that a judge or chieftain shall only be from the people of
Israel. ... Any authority that you appoint shall only be from the midst of
thy people" (Hilchot Mlachim 1:4).
The purpose is clear. The non-Jew has no share in the Land of Israel.
He has no ownership, citizenship, or destiny in it. The non-Jew who
wishes to live in Israel must accept basic human obligations. Then he may
live in Israel as a resident stranger, but never as a citizen with any
proprietary interest or with any political say, never as one who can hold
any public office that will give him dominion over a Jew or a share in the
authority of the country. Accepting these conditions, he admits that the
land is not his, and therefore he may live in Israel quietly, separately
observing his own private life, with all religious, economic, social, and
cultural rights. Refusing this, he cannot remain.
This is Torah. This is Jewishness. Not the dishonest pseudo-
"Judaism" chanted by the liberal secularists who pick and choose what
"Judaism" finds favor in their eyes and who reject what their own
gentilized concepts find unacceptable. They weigh "Judaism" on the
scales of their own intellectual arrogance - an arrogance, incidentally, of
intense ignorance.
And if this is not only the right of Jews but their obligation, what do
we fear? Why do the Jews tremble and quake before the threat of the
nations? Is there no longer a G-d in Israel? Have we so lost our bearings
that we do not understand the ordained historical role of the State of
Israel, a role that ensures that it can never be destroyed and that no
further exile from it is possible? Why is it that we do not comprehend that
it is precisely our refusal to deal with the Arabs according to halakhic
obligation that will bring down on our heads terrible sufferings, whereas
our courage in removing them will be one of the major factors in the
hurrying of the final redemption?
More than 2,500 years ago, a giant of a Philistine named Goliath
strolled out to the ranks of Israel and mocked them: "I have humiliated
the armies of Israel this day - give me a man that we may fight together."
No one moved. The giant was too powerful, and it was madness, suicide,
to confront him.
Instead, they sat in shame and fear, as every morning and every
evening -- for forty days -- the Philistine taunted and humiliated them.
And then came young David; untrained in war, a shepherd, coming to
bring food to his brothers serving in the army. And as he stood there,
Goliath emerged. David listened in fury. David waited eagerly -- who
would leap up to smash the Philistine? David watched in disbelief as no
one moved. All feared the power of the Gentile.
David's wrathful words sound across the ages, as an eternal guidepost:
"Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should humiliate the armies
of the living G-d?”
David, instinctively, understood that the humiliation of Israel was,
simultaneously, the humiliation of the G-d of Israel. He realized that the
brazen readiness to attack and mock the Jews stemmed from a total lack of
fear and awe of the G-d of Israel. For the Philistine there was no G-d of
Israel; at best He was impotent; in truth He did not exist as a divine
power.
This contempt for the G-d of Israel as manifested by the humiliation
of the Jews is Hillul Hashem, the desecration of the name of the L-rd.
Rejection of Jewish rights and power, the contemptuous refusal to
recognize Jewish sovereignty, threats against the Jew and his land, all are
signs of disregard and contempt for the G-d of the Jews. "The
degradation of Israel is the desecration of the name of the L-rd" (Rashi,
Ezekiel 39:7).
All this David understood, and he understood, too, that Hillul
Hashem dare not be countenanced: it must be erased. There is no room
for fear, because the entire reason for Jewish being is Kiddush Hashem, to
sanctify the name of the L-rd and thus persuade the world to follow Him.
And so, young David went out to face the giant Philistine, veteran
warrior and professional soldier, "whose height was six cubits and a span
... a helmet of copper upon his head ... armed with a coat of mail ... and
the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his spear's head
weighed six hundred shekels of iron. ..." And David spoke to him before
he killed him, saying: "Thou comest to me with a sword and a spear and a
shield; but I come to thee in the name of the L-rd of H-sts, the G-d of the
armies of Israel, whom thou hast humiliated.
"This day will the L-rd deliver thee into my hand, and I will smite
thee and take thy head from thee ... that all the earth may know that there
is a G-d in Israel”
And David slew him and took his head from him and the earth - and
the Jews - knew that there was a G-d in Israel.
What is wrong with us? Who blinded us and blocked from our
memories the existence and power of the G-d of Israel? Did a Jewish
people exist for 2,000 years without state, government, or army,
wandering the earth interminably from land to land, suffering pogroms
and Holocaust and surviving powerful empires that disappeared into
history, just by coincidence? Did a Jewish people return to its land from
the far corners of the earth to set up its own sovereign state - exactly as
promised in the Bible - through mere natural means? What other nation
ever did such a thing? Where are the Philistines of Goliath today? Where
is imperial Rome with its Latin and its gods? Who defeats armies in six
days, and on the seventh they rest?
Who if not an Israel because there is a G-d in it! The Land of Israel is
His divine land, the State of Israel is His divine hand. History is not a
series of random events, disjointed and coincidental. There is a Creator, a
Guide, a Hand that plans and directs. There is a scenario to history. The
Jew has come home for the third and last time. "But the third shall be left
therein" (Zechariah 13:8). "The first redemption was that from Egypt; the
second, the redemption of Ezra. The third will never end" (Tanhuma,
Shoftim 9).
We live in the era of the footsteps of the Messiah, the beginning of the
final redemption. The rise of the State of Israel from the ashes of
Auschwitz marks the end of the black night of humiliation and agony, of
Hillul Hashem, and the beginning of the dawn of the final, total
redemption, of Kiddush Hashem, sanctification of G-d's name.
The State of Israel is not just one more Asian nation. It is G-d's hand,
raised high -- at last!-- to put an end to the humiliation of His name.
"Therefore say unto the House of Israel ... I do this, not for your sake, O
House of Israel, but rather for My holy name which you desecrated
through the nations whither you came. And I will sanctify My great name
that was desecrated amongst the nations ... and the nations shall know
that I am the L-rd when I shall be sanctified through you before their
eyes. And I shall take you from among the nations and gather you out
from all the countries and I will bring you into your own land" (Ezekiel
36:22-24).
The State of Israel is not a "political" creation. It is a religious one. No
power could have prevented its birth and none can destroy it. It is the
beginning of G-d's wrath, vengeance against the nations who ignored,
disdained, and humiliated Him, who found Him irrelevant, who "knew
Him not." But it is only the beginning. How the final redemption will
come, and when, depends on the Jew.
"The exiles shall be ingathered only through faith" (Mechilta,
Exodus).
Faith! If we have it, if we truly believe in the existence of the Creator
and Guider of history, the G-d of Israel, we can bring the final
redemption today. "When will the Messiah come? Today, as it is said:
'Today, if you will hearken unto my voice'" (Psalms 95:7, Sanhedrin 98a).
But that faith is not a cheap thing, not mere words and lip service. It
must be proved, tested in the fiery furnace of willingness to sacrifice. The
readiness of the Jew to sacrifice and endanger himself in order to erase the
worst of all sins - the desecration of G-d's name - is the true test.
The Arabs of Israel represent Hillul Hashem in its starkest form.
Their rejection of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel despite the
covenant between the L-rd of Israel and the Jews constitutes a rejection of
the sovereignty and kingship of the L-rd G-d of Israel. Their transfer
from the Land of Israel thus becomes more than a political issue. It is a
religious issue, a religious obligation, a commandment to erase Hi
Hashem. Far from fearing what the Gentile will do if we do such a thing,
let the Jew tremble as he considers the anger of the Alm-ghty if we do
not.
Tragedy will be ours if we do not move the Arabs out. The great
redemption can come immediately and magnificently if we do that which
G-d demands. One of the great yardsticks of real Jewish faith in this time
of momentous decision is our willingness to reject fear of man in favor of
awe of G-d and remove the Arabs from Israel.
The world? The nations - united or otherwise? What do they matter
before the omnipotence of the Alm-ghty!
"Why do the nations rage ... the kings of the earth set themselves and
the rulers take counsel together, against the L-rd and against His
annointed. ... He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the L-rd shall
mock them ..." (Psalms 2:1-4). The Jewish people and state cannot be
destroyed. Their weapon is their G-d. That is reality.
David understood "realism" and "practicality" and "rationality." His
last words before killing Goliath were: "And all this assembly shall know
that not with the sword and spear does the L-rd save. For the battle is the
L-rd's and He will give you into our hands.”
And then David removed Goliath's head from his shoulders and
removed humiliation from Israel.
Let us remove the Arabs from Israel and bring the redemption.
THEY MUST GO.
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