Begin Book Review Comment

I left this comment at the book review of Hillel Halkin on Daniel Gordis' new Begin biography:

This assertion regarding Begin--- "a quasi-religious devotion to the land of Israel (which, ironically, enabled him psychologically to surrender all of Sinai, a territory that was not, for Judaism, sacred)" --- is, I suggest, not exact. Begin indeed argued with Rabbi Shlomo Goren on whether Sinai was within the traditional boundaries of Eretz-Yisrael but the definition of the patrimony for him was the League of Nations Mandate decision that, while on the one hand, excluded Sinai (to the frustration Labor members of the Greater Land of Israel movement, for example, had for Begin) but included TransJordan (would he have concluded the 1994 peace treaty?).

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