There Is No Palestine

By Rabbi Meir Kahane, Zt"l

There is no "Palestine people" and there is no "Palestine." The lands that today constitute the State of Israel, Judea, Samaria (the West Bank), Gaza and the Golan are parts of Israel, the sole land of the Jews.

The Jewish claim to the Land of Israel is not an ordinary nationalist one. It is NOT merely derived from the fact that ONCE Jews were sovereign there, were the majority, ruled the land under their own government and that never was the land empty of Jews. All this is true but this is not the main claim of the Jewish people. Jewish refusal to give up lands is sometimes based on the logical and self evident fact that to give up lands to a people that has constantly threatened to destroy you is sheer madness, and that Jews dare not trust to their kindly intentions in the future. This too, is true, but again, it is not the reason for Jews remaining on the lands liberated after June, 1967.

The fundamental and REAL Jewish claim to The Land of Israel is based on the fact that there is a Divine grant of the land to the Jewish people, and that G-d gave the Holy Land to the Jewish people in order that it be holy and create a holy society therein. No other arguments - Jewish or Arab - have any relevance to the essential fact that the One who created the entire world and who possesses it, has the power and the right to give it to whomever he chooses and this is what was done more than 3,000 years ago at the time of Moses and Joshua. This is what remains inalienable right today. The Land of Israel in its Biblical boundaries is the Divine decree to the Jewish people, it belongs to the Jewish people in its entirety and no alien trespass has any merit or chance of success.

Zionism is NOT one more movement of national liberation. It is not one more like all the rest any more than the Jewish people is one more like all the rest. The believing Jew as the believing Christian knows that there is a Divine pledge - repeated again and again in the prophets of the Bible - that the Jew will be brought back from the Exile, gathered from the corners of the earth and brought home - to the Land of Israel. The believing Jew and the believing Christian know that this resurrection of the Jewish state and this return of the Jew to his home is a NECESSARY precondition for the coming of the final redemption and the establishment of the Kingdom of G-d.

Zionism, the establishment of the State of Israel, the return of millions of Jews home, the miraculous victories of the few over the many Arabs, the liberation of Judea, Samaria (the West Bank), Gaza, and the Golan, the return of Jewish sovereignty over the Holy City and Temple Mount are all parts of the Divine pledge and its fulfillment.

There can be no "Palestine", a name that was invented by the Romans to symbolize the end of the Jewish people, for that would be to diminish and to force back the miracle of G-d and to go against the Divine era of redemption. There can be no "Palestine" for if there is, then there is no Israel.

In all this we DIFFER FUNDAMENTALLY with the government of Israel which 1) recognizes a "Palestinian" people after years of refusing to do so, 2) that there are "moderate Palestinians" who will both challenge the PLO thesis and leadership as well as permanently accept a Jewish State, 3) believes that peace with the Arabs by concessions is possible, 4) is prepared to give up parts of the Land of Israel to the Arabs, and 5) refuses to allow Jews to settle unrestrictedly in any part of the Land of Israel under Jewish control.

We differ with these stands and maintain that the government of Israel, through its short-sighted, timid and vacillating policy, not only destroys the vision and the dream of redemption but brings potential disaster down on the heads of the Jewish people. We maintain that there must be an immediate program of declaring:

1) There are no meaningful Arab moderates who will permanently accept any Jewish state, of any size. The ultimate Arab goal is the elimination of any Jewish state.

2) There is no "Palestine people" or "Palestine" entity.

3) All of the Land of Israel belongs exclusively to the Jewish people.

4) If there are those who wish to create something known as "Palestine' they are welcome to do so in "Jordan" which in itself is a fictitious state created by the imperialist British by cutting away, in 1921, the eastern part of the Land of Israel. The Arabs who call themselves "Palestinians" had the opportunity to create a "Palestine" in a far larger part of the Land of Israel but refused to do so. They lost that chance forever and if they refuse to create a state in "Jordan" now, but insist upon war, they will lose again and lose "Jordan" in the process because - WHILE WE WILL NEVER BEGIN A WAR FOR THOSE PARTS OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL NOW UNDER FOREIGN RULE, SHOULD THE ARABS BEGIN THAT WAR AND WE LIBERATE STILL OTHER AREAS OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL, THEN THOSE WILL NEVER BE GIVEN UP EITHER.

5) The Arabs today sit in large areas of the Land of Israel promised by G-d to us. For the sake of peace, we are prepared to go to a peace conference with maps to show which lands we claim as our own but declare that we are prepared to declare a state of non- belligerency and not demand those lands back. In exchange for that concession, and as the price they should pay for their aggression of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 the Arabs must recognize the State of Israel in the area it now controls.

6) Immediate, unlimited and unrestricted Jewish settlement in any and every part of the Land of Israel including Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and the Golan.

There is no "Palestine" people and there is no "Palestine." We are not dismayed by the Arabs, we are not shocked, we are not confused. Above all, we are not fooled by them. Not by their vague and tantalizing hints of "recognition" not by their aura of "moderation" and not by their ingenious effort to create a camp of "extremists" versus "moderates." We are not fooled by those who for 44 years have threatened to do away with the Jewish state, as in 1967 - before they were taught to be more discreet and allow the world a face-saving way to allow Israel to die. We are not fooled by those, who, in 1956 - BEFORE Jews had liberated the lands the Arabs claim constitute the major cause - took arms from the Soviets and prepared to wipe out the Israel of that time. We are not fooled by those who, in 1947 turned down even the pathetic, grotesque tiny state that the United Nations gave the Jews. We are not fooled by those who rioted against and killed Jews in 1921, 1929, 1936, 1937, and 1938. We are not fooled. There are no "moderate" Arabs. There are only clever and less clever, patient and impatient. The final solution for ALL is the same - the elimination of any Jewish State. And so we repeat: There is no "Palestine people" and there is no "Palestine." They are Arabs, part of the Arab nation that lives in many countries, and to where the Arabs of the Land of Israel must and will be repatriated.

When Gaza truce fails, will Israel finally attack?

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and some close friends...

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh says the militant group and Israel may be close to signing a truce in the Gaza Strip.

Mr. Haniyeh told a gathering in Gaza Monday that ceasefire negotiations in Egypt were nearing an end, and that the pact would encompass both Gaza and the West Bank.

Egyptian mediators have been trying for months to persuade the two sides to stop fighting in and around Gaza and to agree on a prisoner exchange.

The Hamas delegation left Cairo today following two days of negotiations. Officials say some members of the delegation were headed to Damascus for consultations with senior Hamas officials there.

Hours after Mr. Haniyeh spoke, Hamas militants launched a rocket that landed in the Israeli port city of Ashkelon.

Israeli officials say one civilian was wounded.

Israel wants Gaza militants to release a captive Israeli soldier, and it demands that Hamas stop the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. Hamas wants Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza and free hundreds of Palestinian militants.

Israel has said it could launch a military offensive in Gaza if the truce talks fail.