The Jewish–Arab conflict is absolutely about land.
Some intellectuals argue that the conflict is not really about land — and they are wrong. This conflict is precisely about the fact that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
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“Land for peace” — which seems to be a plausible solution for Israel’s allies — was actually a scheme devised after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and the Palestinians lost the 1967 Six-Day War.
Israel offered to return territory that was legally and morally ours. What kind of people would perceive their land as a commodity?
Anyway, the Arabs rebranding themselves as Palestinians rejected the offer. I imagine that we were ready to give up our own land because we lived for so many centuries without a land of our own. Jews could not even own land in Europe. The Marxists characterized us as a “cosmopolitan” people.
In other words, we could never be good communists because we belonged nowhere. We are drifters and wanderers living off various commercial schemes. We built nothing. We are only the merchants and jobbers. Our livelihood was derived from our abilities in luftgeschäft (German for an unstable business or unproductive profession).
It follows, according to the commercial reasoning of a shrewd nation of merchants, that trading one’s home for a piece of paper appears to be a good deal. Our willingness to acknowledge a Palestinian state on our own territory might seem bizarre to any normal nation. But we are new at landowning. Hitherto 1948 our ties to the land of Israel were mostly intellectual and sentimental. The very idea of this land became a theological category. We could pray for it, but not much more could be done.
While many Jews speak of the land as the “Holy Land,” holiness itself, in our time, has a diminished capacity for guiding our lives. Hence, over the centuries, Jews have become increasingly alienated from land.
Our “defense” against Hamas and Hezbollah was a fence. While good fences make for good neighbors, as the saying goes, the Palestinians will never be good neighbors because our land is claimed by them as their own land. In the ethical view of our mothers and fathers, re-occupying Gaza and trying once again to de-Hamasify it would be wrong because nothing equals a human life.
But I think that, at a deeper level, our perception of the earth is that it is merely a chunk of dirt. Loyalty to an ancient covenant has been nullified by a pervading and erroneous Western dualism that has disconnected man from earth, while building overcrowded cities as habitats. The fallacy in this dualism is that man is organically derived from the earth. Biblical cosmology understood this. In Hebrew, Adam (man) is of adama (Hebrew for earth). Sadly, we have been estranged from the very land that birthed us.
During the Middle Ages and beyond, the Jewish community appointed a shtadlan: someone whose job was to appeal to the local authorities. The term derives from Hebrew, meaning to try or endeavor. In other words, someone who attempts to explain why the local Jews should not be banished or punished. Sometimes a special fee or Jew-tax was involved. But the idea is clear: But the idea is clear: Wherever the Jews lived, they had the extra burden of explaining themselves because they had no inherent rights, including the right to life.
Even today in much of the West, the descendants of the shtadlan remain as Jewish organizations which “represent” Jewish communities and explain us to the gentiles.
Some rights are granted or legislated. However, there are some rights that are self-evident. These are natural rights such as that of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The U.S. Declaration of Independence intended that happiness means property, which implies stability. It is where we live. Because natural rights are “self-evident” they are assumed rather than granted. One is granted the right to practice medicine by being given a license.
But only the Jews were “granted” the right to live because both Islamic and Christian civilization de-humanized the Jew and thereby nullified those natural rights.
The conundrum is that rights must always be defended because they are always challenged. The American settlers did that in 1776. Natural rights cannot be defended in a court of law, like we see from the Nazi legal system or the modern-day International Court of Justice. Clearly, neither the courts nor the police are defending the rights of Jewish students on Western campuses to a peaceful and happy college education, these days.
Moreover, no less an august body than Western country legislatures has called for a debate on the rights of Jews to be free of Jew-hatred. In fact, it is already a partisan issue. The congressional ambivalence about Jew-hatred, which is reflected in calls for the annihilation of Israel that can only evoke fear about the future of Jews in many Western countries.
Inasmuch as rights cannot be defended in any forum such as the United Nations or Western legislatures, they must be defended by force. This brings me to yet another fundamental or natural right, the right to land or a part of the earth — because the earth is our womb and eventually our tomb, each of us deserves to own a piece of it. That is the meaning of property rights.
Moses, in addressing the Israelites, reminded them that we are descendants of a “wandering Aramaean” who migrated from his home in Mesopotamia. The Danish theologian Kierkegaard called Abraham the “knight of faith” because he heard a Voice that transformed him and, through him, history itself.
There is a Talmudic discussion about the distinction between a commandment and the sense of being commanded. It is the task of Judaism to translate the commandment from its indisputable form into an instinctual form.
When Jeremiah spoke of the transformation of the “tablets of stone into tablets of the heart,” he meant that someday the written law would become natural law. Accordingly, there is a difference between one’s rights to territory and the “territorial imperative.” It is the difference between cognition and perception, between an idea and an instinct.
The territorial imperative is an expression of need. Our basic food groups depend upon the land. Defense and offense are always land-based. Topography is a tactical asset. But, our claim to this land is not solely about its tactical value. Our claim is an application of our natural rights.
When Israel was reestablished in 1948, our “PR” made some poor attempts to appeal to the world’s conscience. We explained Israel was a necessary refuge for the Jews. Diaspora Jews spoke of a strong Israel as their insurance policy. Since, until now, many Jews felt that they did not need this insurance, they remained content to support Israel from afar.
The repression of basic rights is often the cause of mental illness. Because Jews have abandoned their natural rights, living instead upon the good will and tolerance of others, they no longer experienced what every animal does — the territorial imperative.
Eventually, history corrected the delusion that Israel is a refuge, a safe place for Jews. October 7th destroyed the myth that Israel protects Jews. Today, Israeli soldiers are fighting for the lives of fellow Israelis and Jews across the world.
The great catastrophe of October 7th, we told the world, was the murder and kidnapping of so many Israelis. It was not a hostile incursion into our land. We reacted anxiously and many Jews all over the world understood and sympathized. Perhaps we were shocked by the hostile reaction of our allies — the great Western civilization established upon the foundation of Hellenism and Judaism.
But by now, one year later, we should no longer be surprised. The Hellenists were always antagonistic to Judaism. We appealed expecting the world to reach out sympathetically. Perhaps we should have appealed not to sentiment but to reason — because our strongest argument is an appeal to reason and rights.
As we learned once again on October 7th, this land is not a safe place for the Jews, as some Zionist propaganda previously tried to insist. The land of Israel is not a refuge or hideout for Jews. It is the main target for our enemies. But this land is also the right place for us, even though it is unfortunate that, oftentimes, rights need to be defended — whether by lawyers, diplomats, or soldiers.
When we think about it, every nation is someone else’s target. America is targeted by Russia, China, and Iran. But most Americans are not fleeing to a safer place. There is no safer place. Jews suffering from this collective form of neurosis still seek refuge and tolerance. But tolerance is hardly safe. What is given can be rescinded. Safety, while partially a physical issue, is predominantly emotional and intellectual. Our fears can only be overcome when we sense that we belong to this land.
Israel is the land that defined us and out of which our civilization was fashioned. Israel is our home and, until this slogan becomes an existential reality for global Jewry, we are weak. Israel is not a displaced persons camp for Jews along the Mediterranean coast. Displaced persons camps are vulnerable.
Stateless Jews had no rights because they were incapable of defending their rights. "Zionism may have liberated much of the world from its Jewish burden, but it has not yet freed the Jews from their own psychic burden.
Some of our intelligentsia argue that the conflict is not really about land — and they are wrong. The conflict is precisely about the fact that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Hence the meaning of the territorial imperative.
It is true that we are fighting for our lives. However, we are fighting to survive because our rights are not recognized.
Rights are not secured by diplomacy. They are ensured by the territorial imperative that empowers us, Jews, to defend our rights.
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Land for peace never made sense because Israel had and has no true partners in the so called peace process
I appreciate the sentiment but disagree with the conclusion. While we must fight for the land and the right to the land, the fight is about dominance, which is why it is not confined to Israel itself and it is not confined to those who want the land for themselves. The world is furious and rejects the notion of the autonomous Jew. Jews are bing attacked in London, Paris, and NYC because they are autonomous, not because they live in land someone else claims for themselves. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the first half of the 20th century, Islam saw itself as weak and subservient, which spurred it to become much more radical than it was before. This explains why the fight is much more than with Israel or Jews, although they are the focal point and tip of the spear.