5740

Mr. ——
Los Angeles, California

P.S. For understandable reasons, this addendum follows separately and is addressed to you, although according to protocol it should have been addressed directly to the editor and publisher of the B’nai Brith Messenger. However, as I have had no previous contact with him, and since this communication contains a plea for action, it would probably have come as a surprise to him, and perhaps also “put him on the spot.” Hence, I am sending it to you to pass on to him with your recommendation, especially since you wrote to me in your official capacity.

Following Jewish custom, I will begin with a prefatory remark apropos the name of your publication—“B’nai Brith Messenger.” As the name implies, its purpose is to convey a message to its readers and through them to their families and friends, who are B’nai Brith, “Children of the Covenant.” The reference is, of course, to the covenant between G‑d and His people, beginning with the first Jew, our father Abraham. According to this covenant, G‑d assured Abraham, “Unto your seed I have given this land . . .” This G‑d reaffirmed again before the birth of Isaac: “And I will establish their generations for an everlasting covenant . . . and I will give unto you, and to your seed after you, the land of your sojourn, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.”

Since the Bible is held sacred not only by Jews but also by Christians and Muslims, no one can honestly question the Jews’ title to the Land of Israel. Indeed, in accordance with this covenant, G‑d led our people out of Egyptian bondage into the Promised Land, and our people took possession of it and, since the time of King David, made Jerusalem the eternal capital of their land, long before any of the present-day world capitals came into being. With a brief interlude of 70 years—the Babylonian exile—our people dwelt in the Land of Israel for 1340 years (2488–3828), and even after G‑d saw fit to send our people into the present exile and dispersion, there has always, up to the present day, been a Jewish presence and yishuv in our land, while all Jews throughout the Diaspora have longed and prayed (three times daily) for our return to our homeland and everlasting possession—“May our eyes behold Your return to Zion in mercy.”

Yet, of late, our title to Eretz Yisrael has been challenged by the very nations who, by force of arms, repeatedly sought to rob us of our everlasting possession.

Sadder still, there appeared some Jewish leaders who, for the sake of peace, or rather the illusion of peace—and frightened by threats of further violence in the midst of a hostile and callous world—were prepared to and actually did surrender portions of our land, in the ill-conceived belief that our enemies would thereby be appeased. Moreover, contrary to all experience and common sense, which have demonstrated again and again that every act of appeasement and concession only invites stronger pressures to yield to even more avaricious demands, there are still those among our own people who persist in following this dismal course. The so-called Camp David Accords are only the culmination of the first phase of this ill-fated and self-defeating policy.

As you may have heard, when the Camp David negotiations were initiated, I considered it my sacred duty to call attention to the true nature of this disastrous expediency. There was no basis in law, nor in justice, nor in reality, to give in to pressure to sign an accord and treaty by which one party gives all and the other party takes all; namely, first giving away tangible and vital resources in terms of territory, fortifications, air fields, oil wells, and the dismantling of settlements, etc., all vital to its security, while the other gives in return no more than promises, such as the establishment of communications, exchange of ambassadors, and “normalization” of relations, all of which could be revoked at any moment under one pretext or another. I warned that far from bringing real and lasting peace, this “accord” would only whet our enemies’ appetite for more “grabs,” encouraged by the weakened security position of their adversary. I also warned that it was folly to put one’s trust in the USA’s part of this agreement, for it was obvious that the USA was leaning heavily towards the Arab position.

Since the signing of the Camp David Accords and Treaty, the consequences it has spawned have turned out to be even worse than I feared. Now, some 18 months later, everyone can clearly see that Egypt never intended to keep its promises fully. Right from the moment it took over one segment of Sinai after another, it broke its pledge to keep these zones demilitarized, though for the sake of expediency this matter has been hushed up. Even at this moment Egypt is busily engaged in aggressive military preparations (the construction of tunnels under the Suez is but one glaring example). This should come as no surprise, given the record of broken Egyptian pledges in the period following the Yom Kippur War, and ever since 1948. At the same time, it is demanding, and obtaining, from the U.S. an ever-increasing supply of the most sophisticated weaponry, not to mention what is going to such other “moderate” Arab states as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and even Iraq.

Such is the “even-handed” policy of our U.S. Government. Be it also noted that even in regard to its own obligations in connection with the Camp David Accords, particularly the assurance of oil supplies to compensate for the surrender of the oil wells in Sinai—developed with Jewish ingenuity and resources—it has found a convenient loophole, claiming that the situation is not “critical” as stipulated, which obliges the country to spend millions of dollars in overcharges on the open market, thus putting a critical squeeze on the economy of Eretz Yisrael, which is in dire enough straits as it is.

All the above is surely well known to you; and, since you are connected with the news media, you probably know better than I what is going on behind the scenes in Washington and Cairo.

The question is: Now that we have a Camp David agreement signed, sealed and delivered, don’t we have to live with it? Would it be legally and morally right to abrogate it unilaterally?

There are two major answers to this question. First of all, an agreement is binding on either party only as long as the other is carrying out its part. As noted above, and as a matter of record, the Egyptians have not acted in good faith, and have broken, and are breaking, many of their pledges under the agreement. (To cite one more glaring example, which should have created a much greater public shock than the tiny ripples it started: By their own admission, once the fact was discovered, the Egyptians had been reporting to other Arab nations, as well as the PLO, on the negotiations conducted with the representatives of Eretz Yisrael under the Camp David Accords.) In view of the systematic violations of the agreement by the Egyptians, the other party need not feel either legally or morally obligated to abide by it.

The second answer, which is equally valid, is that the Camp David Accords were based on a presumption that invalidated them in the first place. Clearly, no government official has the right to sign away the very security of the people and country he represents, nor the security of the next generation and subsequent generations, for no person can possibly have such a mandate, actual or implied. Certainly, in the present case, no such mandate was given—on the contrary; there is an explicit and expressed unanimity that the security of the Land of Israel and its three and a half million Jews is not negotiable. Since the Camp David agreement does indeed jeopardize the security of the people and land of Israel, no signature, or even ratification, can be binding.

Incidentally, it has now been publicly admitted by a high-ranking member of the government of Eretz Yisrael and leading representative in the negotiations that the Camp David agreement was a mistake, and that the terms, at any rate, should have been reversed, namely that Egypt should have been made to comply with its obligations before surrendering to it the Sinai and all that went with it. In summary, despite the political differences, dissension and confusion in certain Jewish circles, both in the Land of Israel and here in the USA, there is no Jew in the world who will tolerate the thought of genocide of the Jewish people, “even” in the very Land of Israel, and we have a right to expect all decent non-Jews to share in this determination.

Hence, Jews everywhere must stop bickering and must demand in one voice: No more concessions! No more giveaways! No more pressures!

And here is where my request comes in. I do not know what you and the editor and publisher of the B.B.M. think personally, as individuals, about the situation outlined above; nor am I adequately familiar with the position which the B.B.M. has advocated in the past. I do believe, however, that a publication that carries the banner of B’nai B’rith (in the true sense of the term, as noted above), and which is now in its 84th year, has the primary obligation to carry the message of the divine covenant to its numerous readers, many of whom are leading personalities in various Jewish communities—the message of the Torah, Torat Chaim and Torat Emet, namely: that Eretz Yisrael is ours by divine covenant, as indeed is recognized by all who believe in the sanctity of the Bible; and the “facts of life” and "truth" are that Jews are not “occupiers” or “aggressors” in their homeland, but that what has passed into our hands is only a restitution of what is rightfully ours by divine will and grace, not by the “false grace” of the United Nations.

And we cannot afford to be magnanimous and give away any part of our tiny land in response to the threat of force, since the retention of every last inch of it is a matter of vital security for its three and a half million Jews, men, women and children, as well as for our Jewish people as a whole.

To conclude on the timely note of coming from Tisha B’Av and approaching the month of Elul, the month of special divine grace and mercy—may G‑d indeed reveal His mercy to the world, and to our Jewish people, and bring us the true and complete Geulah through Mashiach Tzidkeinu, which will also bring about the perfection of the world under the sovereignty of the Almighty. Indeed, every one of us can do much to hasten the realization of this divine promise through an ongoing movement of teshuva—return to the Jewish essence, which is inseparably intertwined with Torah and mitzvot and living Yiddishkeit in the everyday life, as our great Teacher and Guide of all times ruled: “Jews do teshuvah and are redeemed immediately.”

With blessing,