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The
ews
and
Israel
From time to time, the
editorial staff of
The
Plain Truth
endeavors
to bring to the attention
of its audience those
views of leading
personalities that have,
or will have, a
significan! impact upon
the world. This month
Ilan Elgar, Consul
for Press and
Information at the
Israelí Consulate
in Los Angeles, explains
his nation's viewpoint on
the Middle East
dilemma. In the January
issue we presented the
viewpoint of the
Kingdom of Jordan.
T
o
SEEK
an equitable res–
olution of the Arab–
Israeli conflict, the first
priority must be to es–
tablish a clear historical basis
in principie for rights and
claims. Only on the basis of
such a truthful historical per–
spective can pragmatic ques–
tions be approached for nego–
tiation.
A complex mythology has
arisen to obscure that history.
... Diplomacy can play its role
only if the myths are swept
away and historical truth be ac–
corded its rightful place. Other–
wise, even negotiated settle–
ments may turn out to be
transient and illusory.
The crucial element in the entire
mytbological structure is the doc–
trine, universally accepted in the
Arab/ Muslim world, that the Jew–
ish State is an interloper in the
Middle East, foisted upon the
Arabs by Western imperialism and
Zionjst colonialism- that the little
land of Palestine was arbitrarily
chosen by them as the place for
Jewish settlement, especially after
the suffering of the Jewish people
during World War Il-and that, as
a consequence, a great historical
injustice was done by depriving the
Arabs of Palestine of their land.
The truth is that the place called
Palestine was never the ancient
homeland of the Arabs who live in
Israel and the "West Bank. " Nei–
ther in history nor in international
law has "Palestine" ever been a
country, still less an
Arab
country.
For millennia the historically de–
cisive term for the area was
Eretz
lsrael - the
land of Israel-a name
given it not by extremist nationalist
Jews in 1948 or 1967, but by the
emancipated children of Israel af–
ter their Exodus from Egypt under
Moses, sorne 3,500 years ago.
Certainly, the story begins with
the Bible-with the account in
Genesis of the patriarch Abraham
and the covenant he forged with
bis God and his land- a covenant
that Jews throughout the world
continue to recall in tbe ritual cir–
cumcision of their 8-day-old sons.
The sense of that covenant pene-
trated and suffused the national
consciousness ever after. The Holy
Land is holy becaus e of that
covenant and all that flowed from
it in Jewish history, from Abraham
to Moses to David to Elijah to
lsaiah and Jeremiah, names that
reverberate in the literary and spir–
itual consciousness of tbe West.
The land of Israel is sacred to
Christianity because Jesus was
born there, trod its soil and ful–
filled his mission there. But it was
sacred for Jesus (as also for
Muhammad) because of Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob (Israel) and
Moses and David and Elijah. The
Messiah, in Jewish tradition, is to
stem from the seed of King David,
and it is precisely in the claim of
Jesus ' Davidic lineage that Chris–
tianity grounds hjs Messianic legit–
imacy.
But if it all begins in the Bible,
it surely does not end tbere. It is
the historie religio-national charac–
ter of the Jewish people that en–
abled it never to waver in its alle–
giance to its God and its land. The
concepts of "Exile" from
Eretz Is–
rael
and of "Zion Redeemed" are
central to an understanding of Jew–
ish survival through the ages- and
of the creation of the J ewish S tate
in our own time.
In exile, in dispersion and in per–
secution through two millennia the
J ewish people never forgot the
covenant. Through the ages and
throughout the world, from birth
to death, on ordinary days and bigh
occasions, on Sabbaths and festi–
vals, at home and in the synagogue,
at meals and fast days, through
unremitting prayer, study, cere–
mony, custom and law- an inerad–
icable and unassuaged passion for
Eretz Israel
and Jerusalem perme–
ated the Jewish consciousness.
For nearly 20 centuries, this at–
tachment formed the central theme
in the literature of the Jewish peo–
ple. All Jewish prayers for national
restoration, all movements of reset–
tlement, all Messianic aspirations,
had as their prime object the re–
building of
Eretz Israel
and
Jerusalem- and that rebuilding
carne to epitomize the redemption
of the people of Israel. ...
Numerous invaders conquered
the land of Israel: Assyrians, Baby–
lonians, Syrians, Egyptians, Per-
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