The Letter About Israel the Rebbe Asked to Publicize

Episode 280: "The Letter About Israel the Rebbe Asked to Publicize" (י' בחשוון תשפ״ו)

Welcome to our weekly Motzei Shabbos program.

Last week's program I mentioned that in the coming week I will continue — it'll be a hemshech of the many, many answers of the Rebbe about drinking mashke — but I'm going to use that for next time, because the whole world now is talking about the ceasefire with the Arabs and about peace.

So I found a letter that Rabbi Mindel took dictation of, and the Rebbe wrote the notations, and I feel that instead of explaining the letter and talking about it, I should actually read it exactly, because every word of the letter the Rebbe looked over, and the Rebbe made a lot of notations. So I think I'm going to read the letter. Now, this letter is about — years ago — and you see the same thing today.

Whatever the Rebbe said years ago, you see it mamash, what's happening in Israel today about the peace — meaning the two-state solution, giving back part of Israel to the Arabs. And even the Rabbi says that even some think it would be a good idea to have a two-state solution. So I want to share with you an English letter today, and I'll read it the way it's written, so that I won't make a mistake about what the Rebbe is feeling about this whole thing, and it will be clear to everybody what the situation should be.

The Rebbe wrote one thing — that even the Muslims, if we would explain to them what it says in the Bible, they would understand and say the truth.

What I will share with you today is that it should be publicized in newspapers, written to families, to friends, to all Jewish communities, and to all nations, even to the gentiles, that Israel is ours by divine covenant, as recognized also by all believers in the sanctity of the Bible. That's what the Rebbe writes.

"And the facts of life and truth are that Jews are not occupiers or aggressors in their homeland. But it is only a restitution of what is rightfully ours by divine will and grace, not by the false grace of the United Nations. And we cannot afford to be magnanimous and give away any part of our tiny land by the threat of force, since it's a matter of vital security for millions of Jews — men, women, and children — as well as for our Jewish people as a whole.

Jews, of course, even gentiles know that Jews are children of the covenant, and that's the covenant between G-d and His people, beginning with the first Jew, our father Avraham Avinu. According to this covenant, G-d assured Avraham: 'Unto your seed I have given this land.' This G-d reaffirmed again before the birth of [unclear]: 'And I will establish their generations for an everlasting covenant, and I will give unto you' — the Rebbe writes — 'and to your seed after you, the land of your sojourn, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.'

Since the Bible is held sacred not only by Jews but also by Christians and Muslims, no one can honestly question the Jews' title to the land of Israel.

In accordance with this covenant, G-d led our people out of the Egyptian bondage into the Promised Land, and our people took possession of the land. And since the time of David Hamelech, King David, made Jerusalem the eternal capital of our land — long before any of the present-day capitals of the world came into being — aside from the seventy years of the Babylonian exile, our people had dwelt in the land of Israel for 1,340 years.

And even after G-d saw fit to send our people into the present exile and dispersion, there has always been a Jewish presence and yishuv in our land to this day, while all Jews throughout the diaspora longed and prayed three times daily for a return to our homeland and everlasting possession: 'May our eyes behold Your return to Zion in mercy.'"

And by the way, as a mussar: before 1948, when the British called in the Arabs and called in the Jews, they should say who the land belongs to. So then Ben-Gurion took out a Tanach and showed, "This is our deed, this is our deed." This was done before 1948.

"Yet of late — right now — our title to Israel has been challenged by the very nations who, by force of arms, repeatedly sought to rob us of our everlasting possession."

The Rebbe writes: "Very sad."

"There appeared some Jewish leaders who, for the sake of peace — or rather the illusion of peace — and frightened by threats of further violence in the midst of a hostile, hard world, were prepared to, and actually did, surrender portions of our land, in the sick, ill-conceived belief that our enemies could be appeased. Moreover, contrary to all experience and common sense, which has demonstrated again and again that every appeasement and every concession only invited stronger pressure for more greedy demands, there still are those among our own people who persist in following this dark course.

The so-called — this was then — Camp David Accord is only the culmination of this sick, jaded, and self-defeating policy."

You see the same thing today.

And the Rebbe says: "When the Camp David negotiations were initiated, I considered it my sacred duty to call attention to the true nature of this disastrous treaty. There was no basis in law, nor in justice, nor in reality, to give in to pressure to sign an accord and treaty by which one party gives all and the other party takes all — namely, the first giving away tangible and vital resources in terms of territory, fortifications, airfields, oil wells, and settlements, more or vital security, while the other gives in return no more than a promise, such as the establishment of communication, exchange of ambassadors, and normalization of relations, which could be revoked at any moment under one pretext or another."

And I remember — I remember years ago that everybody was saying, "But the Camp David Accord..." and the Rebbe says this is the biggest tragedy. The Rebbe mentioned then: "I warned that far from bringing real and lasting peace, the accord would only whet our enemy's appetite for more grabs, encouraged by the weakened security position of their adversary. I also warned that it was a mistake to put trust in the United States' part of this agreement, for it was obvious that the United States was heavily slanted in favor of the Arab position since the signing of the Camp David Accord and treaty. The consequences that have resulted turned out to be even worse than I feared.

Now, some eighteen months later, everyone can clearly see that Egypt never intended to keep its promises fully. Right from the moment it took over one slice of Sinai after another, it broke its pledge to keep these zones demilitarized. Though, for the sake of [unclear], this matter has been hushed up. Even at this moment, Egypt is busy engaged in aggressive military preparations — the construction of tunnels under the seas" — he underlined that; I don't know why — "is but one glaring example. This should be no surprise, in view of the record of broken Egyptian pledges after the Yom Kippur War and ever since 1948.

At the same time, this is demanding and obtaining from the US an ever-increasing supply of the most sophisticated weapons, not to mention such other moderate Arab states as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and even Iraq."

I can imagine how the Rebbe was in pain from this whole thing.

"Such is the even-handed policy of our US government. Be it noted also that even in regard to its own obligation in connection with the Camp David Accord — particularly the assurance of a supply of oil to compensate for the surrender of all oil wells in Sinai, which were developed by Jewish [unclear] and resources — it has found a convenient loophole, claiming that the situation is not critical as stipulated, which makes it necessary to spend millions of dollars overcharged on the open market, thus putting a critical squeeze on the economy of Eretz Yisroel, which is in dire straits as it is."

The Rebbe is continuing, writing to this person:

"All the above is surely well known to you, and since you are connected with the news media, you probably know better than I what is going on behind the scenes in Washington and in Cairo."

The question is: "Now that we have a Camp David agreement — we signed, we sealed, and we delivered — don't we have to live with it? Would it be legally and morally right to break it unilaterally?"

So the Rebbe answers — two answers to that.

"There are two major answers to this question. First of all," he writes, "an agreement is binding on either party only as long as the other is carrying out its part. As noted above, and as a matter of record, the Egyptians have not acted in good faith and have broken, and are breaking, many of their pledges under the agreement.

To cite one more glaring example, which should have created a much greater public shock than the ripple it did — by their own admission, when the fact was discovered, the Egyptians had been reporting to other Arab nations, as well as to the PLO, on the negotiations conducted with the representatives of Israel under the Camp David Accord. In view of the systematic violations of the agreement by the Egyptians, the other party need not feel either legally or morally obligated to abide by it."

That's the first answer.

"The second answer, which is equally valid, is that the Camp David Accord was based on a presumption that was invalidated in the first place. Clearly, no government official has the right to sign away the very security of the people and country he represents, nor the security of the next generation or subsequent generations. No person can possibly have such a mandate, actual or implied. Certainly, in the present case, no such mandate was given. On the contrary, there is an explicit [unclear] that the security of the land of Israel and its millions of Jews is not negotiable. Since the Camp David agreement does indeed jeopardize the security of the people and land of Israel, no signature, or even ratification, can be binding.

Incidentally, it has now been publicly admitted by a high representative in the negotiations that the Camp David agreement was a mistake, and that the terms, at any rate, should have been reversed — namely, that Egypt should have been made to comply with its obligations before Israel surrendered to it the Sinai and all that went with it.

In summary, despite the political differences and disagreement and confusion in certain Jewish circles, both in the land of Israel and here in the United States, there is no Jew in the world who will permit the thought of genocide of the Jewish people, even in the very land of Israel. And we have a right to expect all decent non-Jews to share in this determination. Jews everywhere must stop bickering and must demand in one voice: no more concessions, no more giveaways, no more pressure."

These are the words of the Rebbe: "And we cannot afford to be magnanimous and give away any part of our tiny land by the threats of force, since it's a matter of vital security for millions of Jews, men, women, children, as well as for our Jewish people as a whole."

And since it's always so, we see today what's happening — the same thing over and over again, in a different way, but the same idea. Because when the Rebbe says something, we see how much the Rebbe put into it. What does the Rebbe want here? We have to protect Yidden, and every part of it belongs to the Yidden — Yehuda and Shomron, every part — and we shouldn't listen to the world. This is why I wanted to read this letter. I read it exactly the way the Rebbe wrote it — this is word for word. The Rebbe signed this letter, and people can understand now what the feeling of the Rebbe is today. If they have any questions, [unclear] — next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.