10 — THE BULLETIN — Thursday, May 31, 1979
(Continued from pagie 2)
not, in the field of international relations, a legitimate form of occupying a piece of territory."
He reminds iis that the.PLO do not make any distinction between Shechem and Tel Aviv, claiming that both are in the land of Palestine which they claim, which they want, to which they have a right.
He emphasizes that if Jews don't settle in Shechem, then it'looks, from the PLO point of view, as though they are winning.
"And I don't think it is healthy for us to give them the impression that they are winning. This isn't a static conflict. One side increases its strength and the other side weakens in a kind of see-saw battle.
The young political scientist illustrates his viewpoint with the example of U.S.-Soviet relations. Detente is not static. The relationship of power between the two sides is not frozen. "Everybody knows the Soviet Union's military strength is increasing and America's is decreasing, and detente hasn't prevented that," he declares. "Similarly with us and the Arabs, either the Jews get. stronger-or the Arabs get stronger. There's no alternative."
One of Gush Emunim's most difficult struggles is with the procrastinating government which, with the exception of Kiryat Arba and Gush Etzion, has delayed the
miles or less from where 1 live. This provides the clear vision that if Israel leaves my settlement, the Arabs will be back sitting on the mountains, potentially with their cannons and army looking down again on this vulnerable Jewish population sitting around Tel Aviv. .
"There is no way the state can survive if we live only around Tel Aviv.. That's the new Jewish ghetto in the modern State of Israel," he says, his tone sombrei "The fact is that the Zionist movement made a fatal error. Not only this government has made errors in the last two years but also other governments smcethe Six-Day War. This country has made a fundamental error, a historical error, in concentrating the Jewish population on the coast for the last 70 years. So now we have a situation where two-thirds of Israel's population lives along the coast in areas from Tel Aviv to Haifa — and we have not settled the mountains."
Nisan explains that recent exposed hostility of Israel's indigenous Arabs in the Galilee, who are now "openly hostile" to the right of Israelis to exist, has been revealing to more and more people. "It's becoming clear that the Galilee is in danger."
He advocates, as a deterrent to this dangerous situation, that many more thousands of Jews come to Israel on Aliya to help change the
SEPHARDIC FAMILY in their modern Kiryat Arba permanent apartment, hosted Bulletin editors and invited them to stay for Shabbat. Head of household is a Sofer, a
Torah Scribe. , JWB Photo.
promised establishment of perman-' demographic imbalance,
ent settlements. "But it is also important to
As a result, the families who reside realize," he contends, "that what will
in the approximately 15 temporary happen in the Galilee will be a
Gush Emunim settlements feel function of what happens in Judea
disappointed and frustrated. In the and Samaria. If we lose Judea and
last national election in May 1977 Samaria, or if we even appear to be
they had voted for BegiiCs Likud losing them, as we now seem to be
party and the National Religious doing with Begin's Autonomy Plan,
party because they espoused as their then the probJems in the Galilee will
"platforms" a program of large-scale Jewish settlement everywhere in the Land of Israel.
Nisan stresses the importance of the "territories" to Israel's security: "It is the wide national consensus in Israel that under no circumstances whatsoever, regardless of any peace treaty, should the Israeli government withdraw from Judea and Samaria.
"IT IS LOGICAL, therefore, that if Israel is planning to stay primarily for security considerations, then the way to strengthen and protect our position is to settle Jews there," he reasons. "The more Jews you have, the less possibility there is that you will leave. If one has 6,000 Jews one may be able to leave because it is only 6,000 people after a refuge. But if you have 60,000 Jews or if you have 160,000 Jews or h^lf a million Jews ... it is most unlikely that the Israel government is going to be able to or going to want to eHminate their settlements."
To those who want Israel to return the land, Nisan offers a sobering view: "When I sit in my settlement in the. mountains of Samaria I not only know that Tel Aviv is down below on the coast but can see it from a high mountain about two
become worse. If we keep Judea and. Samaria, then it*s more likely that the Galilee will be more secure."
NISAN OBSERVES that the Arabs have a clear sense that this country is 6ne entity, united territorially, historically. For them there is no real line that separates the West.Bank from pre-'67 Israel, or Judea and Samaria from the Galilee. For them this is one country from the Mediterranean sea to the Jordan river.
Nisan is not optimistic about the future: "If one creates a sitiiation in which the Arab aggressors can recover what they lost in a war of aggression, then there is no reason why they wouldn't try a war of aggression again. This is a fimda-mental problem.
"We are interested in the Arabs being deterred from going to war and one doesn't deter them by allowing them to recover the Sinai and the West Bank and Golan Heights because of American pressure on us. Because if that's the case^ then war wouldn't cost them anything. They could always recover what they lost to us thanks to U.S. pressure on Israel.
He believes that even in the
"THOSE WHO are returning to territorial roots and who want ot live in Hebron andSchichem and Bet El and Jericho,'are also people who are deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition." Dr. Mordechai Nisan is one such person, ah observant Jew who came from a
Conservative background in his native Montreal, context of a peace treaty the Arabs, the right of Jews to live there, and
should have to bear the responsibility, the guilt for their actions and that an international community based on law and morality will have to try and tell that to them.
"If not, then we'll be in a situation in which there will continue to be war iipon war because they just can't lose from war. They are not punished by war. The international community has not in the past imposed sanctions on them, so it is now really up to the United States.
"But Ajmerican foreign i^polidy in. the Middle East is itself paradoxical and eternally contradictory — because the U.S. doesn't want war since it fears oil embargoes and Soviet involvement. On the other hand, U.S. pressure on Israel to return territories tothe Arabs says to the Arabs that war is not a bad option for them. It's very dangerous.
Accordingly, Nisan warns that inherent in the process of peace and Israel returning the Sinai, is the germ for the next war.
HE REMINDS US also of President Sadat's refusal to allow Jewish settlers to remain in the Sinai because he won't tolerate Jews living with Arabs. And Prime Minister Begin has refused to take a stand on
has apparently made little effort to force Sadat to prove concretely that he believes in Jewish-Arab coexistence, which is what peace is supposed tp be about.
"If you cain't live with Jews in northern Sinai, all of a few thousand Jews, then I personally question his ability to live with the State of Israel in the Middle East," Nisan observes.
We ask the youthful Gush Emunim /professor to define the movement^ beliefs. Hie' replies: "There is obvious consensus about-the right of Je\ys to live everywhere in the Land of Israel. There can't be an are4 in this country where we. \.can't live, just like Jews are allowed to live everywhere in the world,
"It is one of the historical paradoxes of our era - - perhaps in certain ways these people are sick in a very debp siense — thatthere is an area in this world where Jews can't live that happens to be our historical homeland and it happens to be ruled by Jews. Yet Jews can't live there!"
"We believe that if we don't settle Judea and Samaria en masse then it could be the beginning of another Massada, a last stand threatening the very survival of this country."
JWB photon
"AND FINALLY there is a feeling that what Gush Emunim is trying to do is not limited only to the need to settle a piece of territory but that it involves a kind of Jewish revival in Israel today. It has a spiritual as well as political dimension. "But the Jewish revival which was-
•felt world-wide after the Six Day War lias weakened. There is a loss of direction. Whereare we going? What values do We stand for? Socialism is not the ideology that has redeemed the jje>vish ,pepp»le;, 3ecul^i;ism=i^ in doubt. We have social problejns with
. our youth.. The, educational system hasn't exactly produced the geniuses or moral giants that perhaps certain early Zionists hoped for.
"So what's the answer? The answer for us is that the answer has to be Jewish, the return to Jewish roots. That means the return to Jewish territory. And it means also a return to Jewish values, a way of life; tradition.
"And so in that sense it's probably not surprising that those who are returning to territorial roots and who want to live in Hebron and Shechem and Bet Eland Jeridhp, are also people who are deeply rooted in . the Jewish tradition."
JWB Photo at Kiryat Arba,a short distance from Hebron. This is the kind of permanent housing that Gush Embnim settlers want t« live in on the West Bank in Judea and Samaria. To date they must" get by in prefab, cramped dwellings.