Zion, Justice, and the Right to Return: A Historian’s Perspective on Israel
As a historian of the Israel-Palestine conflict(s), it is clear enough that Jewish People did not initiate violence against Arabs in Mandate Palestine, nor in Ottoman Syria-Palestina, nor any time before. All of the politics aside, there is not a single war that the State of Israel, nor the Haganah initiated against our Arab neighbors. As well, with the Land of Israel being the place of Jewish (Judean) ethnogenesis, the much-demonized term “Zionism” (Tziyonut) can only be understood as a perhaps overly broad term indicating belief in the right of the Jewish People to return to Judea, not any implicit Jewish right to deny our Arab neighbors any of their rights.
Indeed, within the State of Israel, the Arab-Israeli population numbers more than 2,000,000 at the time of this writing. Those citizens have the same rights as Jewish Israelis, and indeed have two additional rights: the right to reject military service, and the right to access the Temple Mount for prayer. Even though the Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism and has been for thousands of years, even though it is the qiblah of our prayers, we are forbidden by law from praying there.
With all of that said, the right of the Jewish People to return to Judea, the Land of Israel, does not in and of itself mean there is no critique to be made of the religious Jewish positions on Zionism. It is thus logical to examine the claim that the Jewish People have literally inherent rights to “Palestine” due to a Biblical promise that “God gave us the Land”.
Indeed, it is commonly cited by religious Zionists that Sefer Berashit, (Genesis 15:7 and 21:12), the Land was given from the Creator, Ha’Shem, to Abraham. It is thusly there that any discussion on this matter must necessarily begin.
Lekh Lekha!
We read in the Torah parshah entitled Lekh Lekha!: “Go! Go! forth from your land of your birth… to the land that I will show you, and I will make you into a great nation” (Berashit/Genesis 12:1).
When Abraham, Sarah, their family and friends arrived in the Land which had been invaded by the Canaanites (Berashit/Genesis 12:6), a Divine Covenant was promised them. The boundaries for this covenantal promise indeed far surpass any land claimed by the State of Israel today. Related to this, it has become something of a boogeyman conspiracy theory throughout the Muslim world, that the State of Israel is always trying to take the full Eretz Yisrael Hashlemah – the Complete Land of Israel.
“To your descendants have I given this Land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates River.” (15:18)
The Talmud teaches of the inherent holiness of the Land to the Jewish People, asserting that, “Even the air of the Land of Israel makes one wise.”
The Talmud says, allegorically, that creation itself began in Jerusalem, with the rest of the world radiating outward from this place. Indeed, the terrestrial location of the Biblical “Garden of Eden” appears to be situated between four African and Mesopotamian rivers, right where one would find Jerusalem-Zion – on a map of the region.
The Qur’an itself reaffirms over and over that this Land was “assigned” to the Jewish People (5:20-26), as an eternal “inheritance” from Allah to the Children of Israel (7:136-137; 26:52-59; et al.). But the Jewish People have never excluded others from the Land, provided they live in peace. Indeed, had we sought to expel the Arab population in 1948, rather than hundreds of thousands fleeing after a failed attempt at ethnic cleansing, then why did we allow so many to remain? Did we just get tired of ethnically cleansing them and called it a day? Having won the War of Israeli Independence, did the “resistance” suddenly just overwhelm us and force us to submit to the presence of so many remaining Arabs, who we then – for inexplicable reasons – granted equal rights as citizens of the newly-formed state?
Such a postulation defies reason. It is the stuff of conspiracy theories and nationalistic legends borne of failed intifaadhat of Arab Nationalist `asabiyyah? It is understandable that the failure of the Pan-Arab Nationalist wataniyyah movement of the twentieth century would be culturally humiliating. This, of course, is the risk of empire-building and imperialist colonialism. Yes, far from the Jewish people seeking to build an empire or colonize, we have never sought anything but centuries of a consistent yearning to return – l’Shana Ha’Ba’ah b’Yerushalayim (לשנה הבאה בירושלים) literally “next year in Jerusalem!”
The Right of Conquest or the Right of Indigenous Ethnogenesis?
Conversely to this, modern Arab Nationalist Movements were intrinsically interwoven with attempts to essentially recreate some version of the Arab Caliphatist Empire. In the case of Michel Aflaq’s (1910 – 1989) “Arab Socialist” Ba`ath Party, this was merely a secular reimagining of the Arab world reclaiming the Imperial glory of the Caliphate.
Arab nationalist ideology did not call for the reclamation of Arabic, but instead was based upon the premise that the region from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf constitute a single Arab-led nation, bound together by a common ethnicity, culture, language, and political identity. There’s only one problem: the historical reality of how Arab dominance came to permeate this region — exclusively through Imperialist conquest and colonization.
In Life magazine’s May 1943 special edition, on the first King of Sa`udi `Arabia, `Abdul Aziz Ibn Sa`ud, we find a candid admission on the issue of Palestine:
“Centuries before the advent of Mohammed, Palestine belonged to the Jews. But the Romans prevailed over them, killed some, and dispersed the rest. No trace of their rule remained. Then the Arabs seized Palestine from the Romans, more than thirteen hundred years ago, and it has remained ever since in the possession of the Moslems.”
Thus, it was by the “right of conquest” alone, that Ibn Saud claimed in the same interview to “know of nothing that justifies the Jewish claims in Palestine.” This is only logical, we might suppose, since Ibn Saud himself only held claim to the new Saudi Kingdom by right of conquest. Indeed, Mecca had been under the control of the Sharif family of saddat from the family of Muhammad up until then. I myself was even engaged to a sayyiidah of that family, residing today in Jeddah, decades ago.
Again, based upon the right of conquest alone, Ibn Saud argued that “this shows that the Jews have no right to their claim since all the countries of the world saw the succession of different peoples who conquered them. Those countries became” what he termed the “undisputed homelands” of the colonizers.
Ibn Saud, of course, did not understand the concept of indigenousness or anti-colonialism. He made no claim that Arabs were indigenous to the region. He made no mention of a Palestinian identity or newly-invented claims of Canaanite origins — in spite of Arabs of the Levant retaining no Canaanite customs, culture, religions, rites or languages.
Today, Ibn Sa`ud’s argument sounds not only spurious — da`if — but also daft and sophomoric.
But he wasn’t finished. Digging his philosophical hole deeper, the King concluded that “were we to follow the Jewish theory, it would become necessary for many peoples of the world, including those of Palestine, to move out of the lands wherein they settled.””
That is to say, if Jews are allowed to have “Landback” then so too must the Native Americans, the Aborigines of Australia and so on. To this, we the decolonizing Jewish people — the Indigenous People of the Land of Judea, the Land of Israel — answer with a resounding: Yes.
Buying the Holy Land?
It is common for rabbis, politicians as well as lay-people to assert that the Torah begins with the Creation account, and not from the first mitzvah because – in their view — the preeminent medieval Torah commentator Rashi (1040 – 1105) explains that the purpose of the Creation story is to establish the absolute Divine ownership over the world, in order to justify Jewish possession of the Land of Israel.
“The Land belongs to God! He can give it to whomever He wants, and take it away from whomever He wants!” I have often heard in exegesis of Rashi’s words. “God is God and God can do whatever He wants! He gave it to the Jews!”
Needless to say that in spite of the Qur’an taking more or less an identical position, this is a far from intellectually satisfying interpretation.
First and foremost, we must understand that while the Creator promises the Land from the Nile to the Euphrates to the progeny of Abraham as a place of residence, Rashi explains that Abraham paid exorbitant amounts for a field in Hebron (23:4).
Indeed, when the waves of Modern Zionist immigrants came into Syria-Palestina and then British Mandate Palestine, we similarly purchased land at three times the going rate and we did so with eagerness and gratitude.
Similarly, Ya`qov ben Yitzchaq purchased the region of Shechem (33:19), and King David bought Jerusalem (Sh’muel Bet/2 Samuel 24:24). At no point did we believe that we should, would or could expel peaceful residents in the Land. Indeed, the only people we were permitted and even commanded to expel were those who xenophobically sought to drive us out when we returned from Egypt (much the same as in modern times, for that matter).
We were then, as now, commanded to drive out any and all who are “blood-thirsty” – literally the meaning “Amalek” – as there was never any given people known properly as Amalekites. That is to say, anyone willing to live in peace with us may be welcomed as our neighbors — just as we do with so many Druze Israelis and the like. Those who are thirsty for our blood must be destroyed.
As the Talmud teaches (Bavli Talmud, Sanhedrin 72a; Yoma 85b): “Ha’Ba L’Horgekha,” (הבא להורגך) if someone is coming to kill you, “Hashkem Le-Horgo,” arise and kill them first. Literally hashkem lehorgo, here means “get up earlier [than them] to kill them [first, before they can make the attempt kill you]” (השכם להרגו).
We do not want war, and that is why there is not one war which Israel has fought, which was not first declared or initiated by surrounding Arab nations – not one. The Talmud teaches further, that “the purpose of the entire Torah is to establish Peace. As it’s written, Her ways are of pleasantness and all her Paths are Peace” (Gittin 59b). Kabbalistically, we are taught in the Zohar that “One who rejects peace, rejects [and thus defiles] the Divine Name” (Zohar 2, Bamidbar 176b).
In one of the most famous Talmudic passages, we are taught of pikuach nefesh, that “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if they destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if they saved an entire world” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:9 and the Yerushalmi Talmud, Sanhedrin 37a).
“Hamas” in the Bible
Just as Abraham did not seize the Land through violence, neither did we. At every turn we have given Land for Peace, even forcibly expelling Jews from Gaza in 2005, in the hopes that this would placate the “Blood-thirsty” Hamas. But this was clearly a violation of the Mitzvah to kill Amalek in every generation. Hamas’ name literally means “violence” and it was foretold that Hamas would literally be eradicated from the Land of Israel in the coming Yamot Ha’Mashiach – the Messianic Era (Yeshayahu/Isaiah 60:18)
Indeed, a Midrash from Rabbi `Oseh of Gaza teaches that “my Hamas” from Hagar that caused Sarah such distress (Berashit/Genesis 16:5) was a vision she had of the events of October 7th, after a lesser “hamas” was committed against her by Hagar. We know, however, that Hagar later returned to the Land and made teshuvah – changing her name to Qeturah. Rashi comments “She was named Qeturah because her deeds were as beautiful, sweet as incense – Qetoret (Berashit Rabbah 61). And since she closed her ‘opening,’ as she did not copulate with anyone from the time she separated from Avraham (61:4).
We do not want war, we do not want violence, but if violence or Hamas threatens us or is inflicted upon us, we will “rise first and kill them.” This is the Way of Yahadut. This it the Way of the Torah — the Derekh Ha’Shem. This is our religious right, and it is our right under secular, international law. No amount of Qatari propaganda from Billionaires profiting off of this conflict will change this reality — regardless of how clever the protest rhymes, or how numerous the loud and obnoxious crowds on campuses or even outside of our events and places of worship.
The Talmud teaches (Sanhedrin 98a), that Mashiach is “waiting at the gates of Rome, sitting among the poor, the sick and wretched,” ready to come “today” if only we should we merit him and “listen to his voice.” Rabbi `Oseh of Gaza teaches that “we listen to his voice” by understanding “the true meaning of the Shema` and the inner meaning of the Yosher form of the Holy Name.”
This means understanding what the Name means internally and in relation to the perceived “other.” This means when we see another human being, we see the yosher form of the Divine Name, in whose image we were created. When we understand this, when we truly “Listen” as “Yisrael” — the Upright, the One who “Sees” God, the Straightened of God — then we understand that all life is ONE just as Ha’Shem is ONE. Then it becomes impossible for us to justify killing anyone who has not committed a crime of intentional murder of an innocent.
“Yisrael” as the “Yosher” Upright Who Were “Right in the Sight” of the Creator
Just as Rashi interprets “Yisrael” as deriving from “Sarita” (indicating struggle or grappling), and Philo plays on the relationship of “seeing God,” Targum Onkelus translates Yeshurun (Devarim 32:15; 33:5,26; Yeshayahu 44.2) as Yisrael.
“And He was king in Yeshurun, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together” (Devarim 33.5).
A number of commentators have further noted the etymology of Yashar El, including Yehudah Ashlag, known as the Ba`al Ha’Sulam, in his commentary on the Zohar. He mentions this etymology (Lekh Lekha, 68 items 183-185), as in the expression “the crooked has become straight” (Vehaya he’aqov le’mishor), (Yeshayahu 40.4). Rabbi Eliezer of Germiza’s Kli Yakar explains similarly that the term Yisrael is composed of these two words; Yashar and El (Kli Yakar Bereshit 32.29).
Israel is thus those who are right in the sense of being just or straight in the Eyes of Ha’Shem; those who are on a Path straight to the Divine and “Godliness.” Rashi thus tells us – opening his commentary on the Torah with this insight – that Ha’Shem allowed residence in the Holy Land to those those who are “Yosher” or “upright.”
God gave it “to who it was right in Its Eyes” to give it to. Here we must not overlook this word “Yashar” which Rashi selects. It was right (Yashar) or upright (Yosher) in God’s Eyes that Israel be given the Land. Even then, we are reminded that “the Land is Mine” – God’s alone – not ours and that we may live there as “resident aliens” (Vayiqra 25.23), so long as we do “Justice, justice” (Devarim 16.20).
We thus would do good to remember that King David was said to not merit building the Temple because he was a “Man of War” (Divrei Hayamim Alef/1 Chronicles 28:3) — that is, one who delighted in war. We would do good to remember this, Rabbi `Oseh notes, in that that “[Rabbi Nachman of Bretzlov, who himself claimed to be] the gilgul of King David” that is, the reincarnation of him, as well as the Ba`al Shem Tov, “lamented over such means of mass killing.”
Thus, Rabbi `Oseh seems to refer to the quote from Rabbi Nachman, that “Many foolish beliefs that people once held, such as forms of idol worship that demanded child sacrifice, etc., have disappeared. But, as of yet, the foolish belief in the pursuit of war has not disappeared… What great thinkers they must be, what ingenuity they must possess to invent amazing weapons that kill thousands of people at once! Is there any greater foolishness than this – to murder so many people for nothing?” (Chayei Moharan, 546).
May we reflect on these truths, presented for the edification of the Children of Israel and for the liberation of the Jewish People from Hamas. May we be the Upright, Yosher people who merit perpetual residence in the Holy Land assigned to us, through doing Justice! Justice! May we “rise first and kill” those who seek to inflict Hamas upon us, and may we persist in spreading the Light of Truth upon the shadows of darkness which seek to conceal the true roots, origins and hidden hands behind this conflict that — to be sure — did not start on October 7th, nor in 1948.
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