Sunday, June 07, 2009

His Voice or His Master's Voice?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...said Sunday that he plans to deliver a major policy address laying out his proposed road to peace.

"It must be understood, we seek peace with the Palestinians and with the states of the Arab world while trying to reach as much understanding as possible with the United States and our friends abroad...My desire is to achieve a stable peace that rests on solid foundations of security for the state of Israel and its citizens."

He added, "Next week I will make an important policy speech in which I will present to the citizens of Israel our principles on achieving this peace and security."



And what did Jabotinsky once say?

He said:

Our Right: Zion is All Ours!

Do not tell me it is all the same whether verbally, or on paper, we give up Hebron, Nablus and Transjordan, because this waiver is but a trivial hollow word, and everybody will see it this way. Do not underestimate the power of waiver. How did this miracle happen twenty years ago, that the nations of the world acknowledged our right to the Land of Israel? At that time they had no idea that we have something concrete here. Only one thing they knew: that for two thousand years we did not waive our rights, and that was decisive.

Do not underestimate the power of right and don’t exaggerate the value of ongoing development and construction. I too, respect what is being built here. But God help us if it is to be the basis for our rights. Twenty years ago, during the days of the Balfour Declaration, the world invoked the criterion of right; and only when this was ascertained were we given the Declaration - our right to the whole of Eretz-Israel, undivided. Twenty years have gone by and today we have permitted them to apply the criterion of ongoing construction by accepting the truncated plan. Our right supersedes construction. Let not Gentile hands abuse our rights, but first and foremost, let not Jewish hands forfeit those rights which are eternal and indivisible. There can be no waiver and no short-cut to Zion. And Zion is all ours!


- From a recording of his voice, 1937, preserved in the Jabotinsky Institute Archive

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Well said.....unfortunately the "right" you speak of is based on beliefs, not substantiated fact. That being said, imagine the state of the world if every religious group converted their "beliefs" into "rights." If this is a valid transition for Israel, it is valid for all others. No one in the world.....no one has the "right" to impose their beliefs on others.....unless of course that particular belief is now seen as a right. God created the earth and its resources for mankind, not Christians, not Moslems and not Jews. It is this very belief system that creates the conflict and suffering that exists in the world. God created all of us.....not just some of us.

YMedad said...

Joseph, your error is that these are not "beliefs" or "religious assumptions". They are historical reality backed up by archeology, independent chronicles ny non-Jews, etc. You don't have to be Jewish to believe in facts.

YMedad said...

Galia, can I live in Mecca or even visit?

Tobias said...

Well, you could certainly visit Saudi Arabia, if there were normal relations between Israel and Arab countries. As for Mecca, yeah, it's a curious case of religious bigotry. Do you really want to be measured by the same standards as Saudi Arabia?

In any case, none of this is relevant to your Arab neighbours who have lived on the West Bank for their entire lives. They don't govern Saudi Arabia, nor anything else.

As for "historical" claims: This is about as convincing as Italy laying claim to basically all of Western Europe because it was once part of the Roman Empire - not very. This is not about who lived there 2000 years ago - all of these people are long dead and forgotten. It's about who lives there now. This includes you, but it also includes Palestinians (or Arabs, as you will, doesn't matter to me.) And it's fundamentally undemocratic that they should have no say about the laws and regulations that govern them in the places they have inhabited for their entire lives, while you do. So either incorporate them and give them the vote or let them set up their own viable state (or join Jordan) and give them the vote there.