Many readers will probably ask: "Of what practical concern is all this to me? There is no way that I can have an effect on Israeli policy, so why should I become involved?"

There are two responses:

1. First of all, like or not, we are all involved. Every Jew is bound to every other Jew: a threat to a Jewish community in any part of the world affects Jews all over the world. How much more so is this true when the Land of Israel is involved. For every Jew, wherever he lives, possesses a portion in the Land of Israel.[18] And the Land of Israel possesses a portion of every Jew, a piece of our heart and soul.

   When (heaven forbid) there is a war in Israel we feel involved and we do what we can to help. Today Israel is being besieged, not militarily, but diplomatically. She is threatened by more severe losses of territory in the conference rooms than she would ever suffer on the battlefield.

2. To a large extent, this struggle is taking place in the public media of the Western countries and among their opinion-makers. These media portray the Arabs as an oppressed people, peacefully seeking to regain what is rightfully theirs. Lies and falsifications are repeated so frequently that they become accepted as immutable truths. And this background supports the Arabs when they sit down at the negotiating table.

   This is where people in the Diaspora can make a difference - by working to set the record straight. Most cases do not call for much convincing. When a terrorist kills a mother and a child, is it difficult to make people understand that an outrage has occurred? When an Arab government ignores its own commitments, shouldn't a newspaper carry the story? Each of us can do his bit to correct Israel's image in the community and country in which he lives.

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Throughout Part I of this presentation, we have tried to make several points:

1. Saving and protecting the lives of its citizens is the foremost priority of any government, how much more so when we are speaking of a Jewish government and Jewish life. Therefore:

2. In the Land of Israel today, security provisions should never be sacrificed in the hope of achieving diplomatic success.

3. Concessions do not breed an attitude of conciliation and peace. Instead, they communicate a stance of weakness that is exploited by the Arabs for pressing further and more extensive demands.

4. The Arabs have never yet taken the concept of peace seriously. Any lip-service to the ideal of peace was intended for one purpose alone: to receive whatever they can without fighting.

5. Israel has constantly operated from an inferiority complex, trying to find favor in the eyes of the other nations, instead of placing her own security as her priority.

   

Notes:

18. (Back to text) Rabbeinu Meir ben Baruch (Maharam of Rothenburg, Responsum 536, Otzar HaGeonim, Kiddushin, sec. 146), rules that every Jew owns four cubits of land in the Holy Land. Accordingly, our Sages apply universally certain principles of Jewish business law that are relevant only to a person who owns real estate.