Prof. Aryeh Eldad in a fascinating survey of the Israeli-Arab conflict, on the continuing failure of attempts to divide the Land as a solution to the conflict, the correct way to solve it and the importance of a sovereignty consciousness. From the 5785 (2024) Hanukka Sovereignty Youth Seminar.
Among the lecturers who took part in the 2024 Hanukka Sovereignty Youth Seminar was former Member of Knesset Aryeh Eldad, who has been one of the most influential Right-wing thinkers in Israel for decades. As part of his remarks, he reviewed the annals of the Israeli-Arab conflict and the repeated failed attempts to divide the Land as a political solution to this conflict.
Prof. Eldad opened his lecture with the question of why the Jewish holdings in the Oz veGaon preserve, where the seminar was being held, are important and his assertion that the security rationale is not a good enough reason to possess any particular location, since every security issue can be resolved by one or another security-based answer. Are Israeli holdings in the Land of Israel motivated by the Biblical factor? Eldar noted that the Jewish-Arab conflict is a threat even to those who do not believe in the veracity of the Bible.
If it were a territorial conflict, where two sides claim that this Land is theirs and each side held that his own side was the just one, then the logical answer would have been to divide the Land, explains Eldad. But “we have been trying this solution for more than a hundred years and each time it ends with a disaster greater than the one before”, he said, noting some of the instances that prove this over the years.
It begins with the Balfour Declaration, where it is written that Britain views with favor the establishment of a national home for the Jewish People in the Land of Israel, coinciding with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and a new allocation of the territory. Based on this commitment, the League of Nations convened in San Remo and granted Britain a Mandate a concession, to rule the Land of Israel, in order to fulfill the vision of a national home for the Jewish People. In response to this, the Arabs began rioting against the Jews in the Land of Israel. The British understood that the challenge of fulfilling their promise was more complex than they thought, because of Arab resistance.
Churchill, British Minister of the Colonies, was sent here in an attempt to solve the problem and chose to divide Palestine between the two parties with the belief that the process would result in peace. Three quarters of the Land of Israel, i.e. the Jordanian Kingdom of today, was given to the Arabs and one quarter, the western Land of Israel was given to the Jews. The Arabs did not like the solution and began a wave of riots and atrocious terror attacks, the slaughter of 1939, in which 150 Jews throughout the Land were murdered. The British realized that the solution was not enough and proposed a further division of the quarter allocated to the Jews, but even this did not appease the Arabs, who began rioting again, resulting in the Great Arab Rebellion, in which 450 Jews were murdered.
Then the British convened the Peel Commission, which proposed an additional division according to which, aside from a small number of enclaves, all the rest would belong to the Arabs, but this also did not appease them. And after the World War, the Arabs renewed the rioting. The British left Palestine and returned the Mandate to the UN, which declared its own Partition Plan, resulting in 6000 Jews being killed. “Nevertheless, there are some stupid people who still propose for us to divide the Land as a solution to the Jewish-Arab conflict”, says Prof. Eldad.
The root of the problem, states Eldad, is an error in diagnosis. As long as the conflict is considered to be territorial and the proposed solution suits that type of conflict, meaning division of territory, then it will not really avail because the root of the conflict is something different. “From this we understand that this is a religious war”, said Eldad, who explained the meaning and essence of Muslim religious war, in which every Muslim is obligated to fight against anyone who holds land that ever belonged to Muslims. “This is a fundamental commandment in Islam”.
And since in the Bible it is written clearly that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish People, this means, says Prof. Eldad, that it is a religious war for both sides, because the Land of Israel is promised to the People of Israel as far as the Euphrates River. “This is a clash between two population groups, each of which claim exclusive right to the Land of Israel. The bad news is that religious wars never end unless one side disappears, is defeated or moves to another place”, said Eldad. A religious war cannot be resolved by logical or intellectual means. This is true also for ideological conflicts over other issues”, he said, noting historical examples of this as well.
Later in his remarks, Eldad laid out the Israeli claims versus those of the Muslims, regarding history, security and others, showing how these claims are weak and given to rebuttal by the Arab side, who actually do this continually, which leads the Israeli Left, who do not have stronger claims, to return to the idea of dividing the Land. This led to the Oslo ideas, which caused the army to deal at length with the question of the role of the military during peacetime, and one of the key ideas to emerge was that it is enough for us to have a small, smart army, which led to disasters later on.
The great turning point in the Left’s position came, explains Eldad, not as a result of arguments and explanations, but from the behavior of the Arabs themselves, resulting in more and more people in Israel shifting to the Right, and the slaughter of the seventh of October pushed the people even further to the Right. Eldad finds an example of one of these awakenings in the shocking words of Avida Bechar on the lesson he learned from the slaughter happening in his kibbutz and not in Gush Etzion. Because if the event had taken place in Judea and Samaria, he would have blamed the presence of Jews in Judea and Samaria as the pretext for the slaughter. Now, the motivation for the Muslims is clear to him. This disillusionment has taken place among many groups in the Israeli Left and Center, which makes it clear to the Left that its chances to regain power are diminishing. Eldad warns of the possibility that this frustrating understanding may cause the Left to degenerate and do radical things, even to the point of civil war.
Prof. Eldad finds hope for the future in the laws of Islam that allow for long cease fires under certain situations when it is clear to the Arabs that they have no chance of defeating the infidels, in our case, the Jews. This is the reason why the Muslims are not currently attempting to conquer Spain – there is simply zero chance for success. “The chances for coexistence will improve when we erect an iron wall to defend ourselves and prevent the possibility of the Jews being conquered by the Muslims. Only then will there be a chance for peace”, says Eldad, noting that regarding Jabotinsky’s article, “The Iron Wall”, he also wrote that he did not foresee it happening in the foreseeable future.
Jabotinsky’s idea was actually adopted by Ben Gurion, his sworn political rival, even if he did not admit it, and the concept of the iron wall became Israel’s security concept – Israel must hold out until the Arabs become discouraged and understand that they cannot defeat us. Then there will be a chance for peace.
Prof. Eldad defines the fight over the territory as a symptom of religious war and not the war itself. “Religious war has symptoms in the field and we are commanded to fight against them, but it is not a struggle between two real estate sharks, says Eldad, who again states that actually, this kind of war has no solution and no cure.
“In the Jewish-Arab conflict, we must search for a formula that will allow us to live in the Land of Israel, minimize the friction and bloodshed and bring about the possibility that in another two hundred years the Arabs will despair of defeating us”, he said, and defined the policy conflict managing as a wise one, if we just understand the Arabs’ true goal. Without this understanding, conflict management is done in a criminal way, he stated, noting that it was this type of criminal conflict management that led to the seventh of October. “The military echelon and the political echelon are guilty in the same degree of what happened to us on the seventh of October, because the political echelon thought that it was possible to contain the conflict and the military echelon fed the political echelon with disaster scenarios of what would happen if we went to war with Gaza and Lebanon”.
Eldad views the application of sovereignty not necessarily as a means of preventing terror attacks, and observes that just as a majority in the Knesset can apply sovereignty, there could also be a majority to repeal that law. “According to the rules of our democratic game, legislation for the purpose of sovereignty is not a real solution to the conflict in Israel. It fortifies our position and it is the ideological, spiritual and religious parallel to taking territory, but it is not a solution to the conflict. The struggle over the Land of Israel will continue. A law will not solve the conflict or convince someone who doesn’t accept it, just as there are those who still do not accept the Nationality Law and therefore it might still be repealed by the Knesset or the High Court”.
Sovereignty is an extremely important political tool, and we must strive to achieve it, but we must not delude ourselves into thinking that after we pass the Sovereignty Law, our problems will be over and we will be able to relax. Sovereignty is consciousness, holding onto the Land is actually borne of consciousness and gives rise to consciousness, because it creates facts that change consciousness. The facts on the ground clarify the argument. It is a supremely important law but does not solve the conflict and it will obligate us to continue to struggle for the consciousness of the Jewish soul in the Land of Israel, so that they understand why they are here, what they are here for; it obligates them to continue to live in this Land”, states Prof. Eldad.