Territorial compromise or forgiveness?

Territorial compromise or forgiveness?

As the territorial compromise became a common notion, its meaning came to be blurred. Jews are supposed to compromise on our holiest places: Hebron and the Temple Mount, and the core lands, Judea and Samaria. In return, the Arabs benevolently grant us the right to exist within our Auschwitz borders, besieged by Arabs from outside and swarmed by Arabs from within. That looks more like a capitulation than a compromise.

Compromise is a weasel word: in effect, it means that a person cedes something to gain something more valuable for him, whether he eats his wife’s ugly breakfast for the sake of peace in the family or cedes land for peace. In theory, compromise is profitable. In Israel’s case, the compromise is a one-sided affair, essentially forgiveness. Israel gains nothing from the compromise but gives away a lot. She agrees to the 1948 territorial solution after the Arabs fought it in several wars and killed tens of thousands of Jews. Israel agrees to forgive the murder of those on whose behalf she has no power to speak, absconds from the duty of revenge, and gives the Arabs everything they wanted—despite the fact that they attacked us and lost. Everything they failed to take through war, Jews give them through peace.

The Judaism of the Torah knows no forgiveness. Even a victim cannot forgive the offender. In rabbinical Judaism, forgiveness is merely a moral option after the punishment is meted out; that is not the regular meaning of the term, “forgiveness.” Punishment is absolute, not commutable. The Torah’s unforgiving justice has a single goal: creating a pure society. On the national level the punishment is even stronger, as it extends to future generations. Even among Jews, children are punished for the political and religious guilt of their fathers (Lev26:39).

Amalek did not simply attack the Jews, he committed a far worse offense: he “did not fear God.” And so we are commanded to exterminate him in the remotest generations. Similarly, the pharaoh’s crime was not just refusing the Jews the right of emigration; worse, he said in his arrogance that he did not know God. That is the crime scores of Egyptians were killed for during the Exodus.

The Arabs who attacked the Jewish state did not commit the simple crime of murdering a Jew. Such murders happen all around the world, and frankly are of little concern to the state. The Arabs rebelled against something more important than individual Jews: the Jewish nation, the Jewish state, and ultimately God. That we have no right to forgive.