Summary
The second-largest party in Israel in the period covered by Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, led by Menachem Begin, for which — unlike Mapai, for which expansion is a hidden aspiration emerging at an “opportune moment” — the expansion of the borders is “the first and main platform plank” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.476).
Details
- Herut’s Fourth Knesset platform: “The right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel in its historic entirety is an eternal right which cannot be questioned”; a peace treaty is possible only on the basis of realizing that right — “the restored integrity of the Land of Israel, all the residents of which can live as free citizens of the Hebrew state with equal rights, without distinction by nationality, religion, or community” (Yedioth Aharonoth, 29/8/59, quoted at Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.476). The book calls this “one of the more moderate formlations” [spelling as printed]; the idea is usually expressed in the spirit of the Herut anthem, “In blood and fire Judea fell, in blood and fire shall Judea rise” (PDF p.476).
- Begin in the Knesset (7/11/56): “The task has not yet been completed and much of the land is yet to be inherited”, and only strategic operations at an opportune moment resulting in “the liberation of occupied territories of the Homeland” can prevent a war on all fronts and set the nation “on its march to peace” (Knesset Records 21/202, quoted at Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.476-477).
- Herut accuses Mapai of inconsistency — supporting Partition, then breaking out of its borders, disclaiming claims, then “liberating” Gaza — concluding that Mapai relies not on “historical right” but “on force and the violent creation of facts”; Herut claims the right is unconditional and eternal, and recommends force not to create it but only to realize it (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.477).
- The book interrogates the platform’s central term: the Covenant borders of Genesis 15:18 were never realized; the historical borders of David, Solomon, Jeroboam II and the Hasmoneans all differ, the Hasmonean “even more constricted than the borders of 29 November 1947”; Herut’s emblem — a hand holding a rifle against the borders of Palestine (both east and west) as set in 1917 — rests on borders “not mentioned anywhere in the Holy Scriptures” but on the Anglo-French division of the Middle East, “based exclusively on the power and the appetites of the involved Powers and on the geometry of oil pipelines” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.477-478).
- Begin defended the “Divine promise” in “On Foreign Policy” (Herut newspaper, July 1953): without the practical ““irrational” faith” in the promise, “we would not have any of the “concrete”” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.477-478).
- The book asks whether the promised equality would survive the Arabs becoming a majority — an Arab president, prime minister or chief of staff of the “Hebrew state” — and notes Herut never asks the Arabs’ own attitude to the offer; its verdict: “Herut does not have a plan for Israeli-Arab peace, but for Israeli-Arab war”, and attempts to realize the programme “are likely to end with the destruction of the Third Temple” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.478-479).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, Menachem Begin, Mapam, Eretz Israel, Territorial Expansion