NO JEW HAS THE RIGHT TO GIVE UP (Eretz Yisrael) THE LAND OF ISRAEL By David Ben Gurion

NO JEW HAS THE RIGHT TO GIVE UP (Eretz Yisrael) THE LAND OF ISRAEL

By David Ben Gurion

"No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel. No Jew has the authority to do so. No Jewish body has the authority to do so. Not even the entire Jewish People alive today has the right to yield any part of Israel.

It is the right of the Jewish People over the generations, a right that under no conditions can be cancelled. Even if Jews during a specific period proclaim they are relinquishing this right, they have neither the power nor the authority to deny it to future generations. No concession of this type is binding or obligates the Jewish People.

Our right to the country - the entire country - exists as an eternal right, and we shall not yield this historic right until its full and complete redemption is realized."

This quotation of David Ben Gurion made at the Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1937, more than 77 years ago.

BEN-GURION'S DECLARATION ON THE EXCLUSIVE AND

INALIENABLE JEWISH RIGHT TO THE WHOLE OF

THE LAND OF ISRAEL

At the Basle Session of the 20th Zionist Congress at Zurich (1937)

by Howard Grief

(English Translation Reprinted with commentary from "A Petition To Annul The Interim Agreement", by Howard Grief,  published by ACPR, Number 77, page 95)

"No Jew is entitled to give up  the right of establishing   [i.e. settling]   the Jewish Nation in  [all of]  the Land of Israel.  No Jewish body has such power.  Not even all the Jews alive today [i.e. the entire Jewish People] have the  power to cede any part of the country [or homeland]  whatsoever.  This  is a  right*  vouchsafed or reserved for the Jewish Nation throughout  all generations. This right  cannot be lost or expropriated  under any condition [or circumstance].  Even if at some particular time,  there are those who declare that they are relinquishing  this  right,  they  have no power  nor competence  to deprive coming  generations of this right. The Jewish nation is neither bound nor governed  by such a  waiver or renunciation.  Our right  to the whole of this country is valid, in force and endures forever.  And until the Final Redemption has come,  we will not budge from this historic right."

It is apparent from Ben-Gurion's above words that though he had already accepted the concept of partition as a pressing necessity, in order to establish the Jewish State, his real goal, as stated, was always the unification of all parts of the Land of Israel, under Jewish sovereignty.  Partition served only as a transitory or interim step in the realization of the ultimate goal to win possession of the entire country for the Jewish Nation.  Though he never realized this goal during his long service as Prime Minister, he never the-less implanted this notion of eventual unification of the Land of Israel into the State's constitutional structure and made it the law of the land to be enforced whenever additional parts of the land would be liberated by the Israel Defense Forces.  It may therefore be safely assumed that in the absence of any serious military threat to Israel's security,  Ben-Gurion, had he been in power in 1967 and guiding the nation's destiny, would never have sacrificed this aspiration after its very accomplishment, no matter what the counter-considerations may have been, such as making possible peace treaties with Arab states or the more inhibiting Arab demographic question, which proved less serious than first anticipated.  It is most likely then that Judea, Samaria and Gaza would have been annexed to the State by Ben-Gurion as Prime Minister as soon as effective possession of these lands had been obtained, under the

very law he himself had created for that purpose, namely the Area of Jurisdiction and Powers Ordinance.  One need only look at what Ben-Gurion did in 1948 while at the height of his power when he annexed all parts of the Land of Israel that the IDF had liberated, to confirm the truth of this statement, despite what others have tendentiously imputed to him after he retired from active public life.

Original land for Israel per Balfour Declaration.

A long time ago in a memory far, far away existed a Mandate called

Palestine, by the western victors of World War 2 and comprised of an area that heretofore was Ottoman Turkey. The Mandate called for the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish homeland. This was hardly “Palestinian” land as the word is today used. The Turks first conquered the land in the 7th Century, It was conquered by Egypt in 1830 and it became a place where many Egyptian soldiers settled. Egypt later gave it back to the Turks in 1838. Along the way many other invaders conquered the land, including the Mongols. Still there were not “Palestinians” claiming that land as theirs.

Following the Balfour Declaration of 1917, wherein Palestine was promised to the Jews, land was “purchased” rather than conquered and farms and communities were built. Throughout the 20’s, 30’s and into the 40’s the Arabs would regularly attack the Jewish settlements, as in the Russian Pogroms in pre Soviet times. Their religion dictated that they could live with the “infidel” but the “infidel” must be subjugated to the Moslem. Seeing the success of the Jewish communities and their well run farms, the Arabs felt that this was “out of place” and that the Jews were not to outdo them and thus they began attacking their settlements. Please note, that nobody hear needed to “cry” that the Jews had taken Arab homeland or that the Jews would not allow them to return to “Palestine”, as they did not need any modern day excuse to “persecute the infidel” for showing them up.

So, the common mistake folks make about “Palestinian” land is not reality. Would someone kindly tell Mr. Obama this, as his starting point for a peace is not historically sound. The second fact here is that the 1967 border, was won by war, with Israel being the victim of the Arabs, who had been attacking them since the 20’s in earnest. Now if it were anyone else on the face of the earth but Jews who won land by war, no one would by crying that they should give it back. In fact, after much “crying by the Pelestina”, (pardon my play on words) the British gave in and “split” the land promised to the Jews, in a less than equal way than King Solomon split the baby, and gave not only three quarters of the land to the Arabs, to form what was to be “their Palestine”, but the arable land as well, leaving the Jews with desert.

The land given the Jews was what is roughly what Israel consists of today and went up to the Jordan River, and included “West Bank” towns of Nazareth, Nablus, all of Jerusalem and Gaza. Hello, Mr. President??? The large plot of arable land became Trans-Jordan, or Jordan, as it is called today. Here is the Rub, when Israel was declared a state in 1947 and was attacked by Arab nations on all sides, they won the war, but the Arabs kept much of the land. Here it seems to be just fine for the world not to ask the Arabs to return to the 1947 borders, let alone the right of return by the Jews to their lands, homes and wealth, which were lost when kicked out of the Arab countries in 1947. No justice here!

Note: The image above shows the land of Palestine as it was to become Israel at the onset.

The second image below shows the final land grant after the Arab nations vociferously complained and thus all of the quality land was given to the Arabs, with the Jews being given the desert lands.

Further note that the land referred to on the second map as Transjordan, was to be the home for the Palestinians.

A "two-state solution" sounds very convincing, (like Jordan as the Palestinian State or Sinai next to Gaza as offered by Egypt) but...

there has been an "Arab homeland in Palestine" alongside a "Jewish homeland in Palestine" since 1923. it contains 78% of the land of the British mandate for Palestine which was to be part of the Jewish State, and is called "Jordan" today, which has about 80% Palestinians. (prior to 1964, no Arab would apply the Jewish term "Palestinian" to themselves, hence the wording.) 

"No Jew is entitled to give up  the right of establishing   [i.e. settling]   the Jewish Nation in  [all of]  the Land of Israel.  No Jewish body has such power.  Not even all the Jews alive today [i.e. the entire Jewish People] have the  power to cede any part of the country [or homeland]  whatsoever.  This  is a  right*  vouchsafed or reserved for the Jewish Nation throughout  all generations. This right  cannot be lost or expropriated  under any condition [or circumstance].  Even if at some particular time,  there are those who declare that they are relinquishing  this  right,  they  have no power  nor competence  to deprive coming  generations of this right. The Jewish nation is neither bound nor governed  by such a  waiver or renunciation.  Our right  to the whole of this country is valid, in force and endures forever.  And until the Final Redemption has come,  we will not budge from this historic right."

BEN-GURION'S DECLARATION ON THE EXCLUSIVE AND INALIENABLE JEWISH RIGHT TO THE WHOLE OF

THE LAND OF ISRAEL

At the Basle Session of the 20th Zionist Congress at Zurich (1937)

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not;
if I set not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy.

“IM ESHKACHECH YERUSHLAYIM TISHAKACH YEMINI”
One must convey Jewish feelings and passions about Jerusalem with un-minced words.
When it comes to JERUSALEM’S sovereignty there is a line drawn in the sand. For the Jews, Jerusalem is their heart, aspirations, their holy city, devotion, ideals, symbol of being a nation with history, a nation with prophets, justice, fairness, rich Jewish history and the Jewish soul. When a Jew conveys his feeling about Jerusalem, he must not worry about offending anybody, or hurt feelings. We cannot make an omelet without cracking eggs, and a Jew cannot and must not be apologetic about Jewish’ feelings concerning Jerusalem. it is clear to me even if I were not a Jew, just from a pragmatic consideration of running a city, that any division of Jerusalem will lead eventually to immense unbearable friction and sooner-or-later to another war. We must present and make the analogy, that dividing Jerusalem is like dividing the baby in King Solomon’s verdict. Jews do not divide babies, only those who do not feel and care for the baby are prepared to take half. This is what every Jew must say.
I hope that we all have the opportunity to say these tough words for Jerusalem and the Jewish people.