NY Times: "Inalienable right to Hebron" = "Unfashionable realism"
Aaron D. Gross
December 23, 1996
ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE
Mideast: Bibi Agonistes
WASHINGTON -- "I am a sojourning settler with you," said the patriarch
Abraham to the Hittites, in Robert Alter's illuminating new
translation of the Book of Genesis. "Grant me a burial holding with
you . . ."
His wife, Sarah, had died "in Kiriath-arba, which is Hebron, in the
land of Canaan." Ephron the Hittite offered Abraham a grave site
free, but the patriarch insisted on paying for a cave in the far end
of the field. Ephron then made a package of the cave and the field and
asked an exorbitant price -- 400 shekels of silver. Without
bargaining, Abraham paid the asking price for the land.
Why pay for a burial plot when it has been offered as a gift? "Ephron,
of course, knows what Abraham really wants," explains Alter, "is to be
able to buy the land and thus acquire inalienable right to it."
Though promised the land by God, the patriarch paid dearly because he
wanted his descendants to avoid future legal argument from men.
Does a biblical property transaction, recounted in such detail
thousands of years ago, still hold? At least a few hundred modern
"settlers" who re-established Kiriath-arba in Hebron believe that it
does, and put their lives on the line by living there, near the Cave
of the Patriarchs, amidst Arabs angered by their presence.
You don't have to be a fundamentalist or a fanatic to understand the
depth of feeling that attaches some deeply religious Jews to that
place. Their determination to remain in hostile Hebron is a central
symbol of one persecuted people's unique survival through the
millennia.
One reason Jewish Israelis voted decisively to elect Benjamin
Netanyahu Prime Minister was to insure that the residents of
Kiriath-arba could bear witness to that continuity without getting
massacred, as similar settlers were a few generations ago.
To protect their lives, even as most Israeli troops withdraw from
Hebron, Mr. Netanyahu suggested some reasonable security modifications
-- making it harder, for example, for potential snipers to zero in on
children -- in the agreement too-eagerly reached in Oslo.
Shimon Peres considered Hebron and other outposts to be impediments in
his plan to purchase peace at the price of delivering almost all the
West Bank to a Palestinian state.
Although unease among Jews has risen since Palestinian police used
weapons supplied by Israel to fire on Israeli troops, Yasir Arafat has
rigidly refused to compromise. That's because his goal is not to live
in peace with Israelis in the West Bank, but to marshal world opinion
to drive all Jews out of "his" territory. Mr. Netanyahu, recognizing
that motive, has shown his resolve by restoring economic aid to
Israelis who dare to live in hardship areas.
That led the blame-Israel set in the U.S., led by Carter's Zbig
Brzezinski and Bush's Jim Baker, to entice Clinton into
settler-bashing. Mideast experts like George Shultz, Sol Linowitz and
Henry Kissinger were not roped in by Baker, but when a reporter then
shouted a question to the President about settlements, Clinton
accepted the premise that they were "obstacles to peace."
He erred.
Perhaps he thought that the questioner meant "new" settlements, which
would surely upset negotiations, but to assert a U.S. position that
the present settlements should be uprooted would be an intrusive
blunder. Even the Rabin-Peres Government oversaw the "thickening" and
growth of present Israeli West Bank towns and Mr. Clinton needs to get
out of the trap set for him.
The peace that cries out to be reached has about 70 percent of the
disputed land Arab, the remainder Israeli. Arab families would
continue to grow in contiguous Palestinian settlements, under their
own flag, and Israeli settlers, including immigrants, would be
fruitful and multiply in their own.
But the road to war is to encourage Arabs to believe that world
pressure can drive Jews out of all the West Bank and establish East
Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian state.
That will not happen. Beating up on Benjamin Netanyahu, or demonizing
settlers in Hebron, or threatening another intifada if Jews build
homes in any part of Israel's undivided Jerusalem -- no such coercion
will make it happen.
The popularity of Israel's present Government may suffer as it resists
pressure to part with the nation's patrimony. Netanyahu's reward will
come when his unfashionable realism delivers durable peace.
Murray Kastner
> December 23, 1996
> ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE
>
> Mideast: Bibi Agonistes
(snip... much deleted)
> The popularity of Israel's present Government may suffer as it resists
> pressure to part with the nation's patrimony. Netanyahu's reward will
> come when his unfashionable realism delivers durable peace.
Holey moley Safire! William sure is articulate and I sure hope he is right
(and hopelessly right-wing), but I fear that he may be proven disastrously
wrong. What a deadly game Netanyahu is playing... I sure hope he knows what
he is doing... Empowering the lunatic fringes can backfire horrendously...
--
M.M.
>(snip... much deleted)
Yes, but he makes an excellent point about how the Arabs are feeling
empowered by the world opinion being so much against .il right now.
The Palestinians can *do no wrong* in the eyes of the world press, and
they are bound to take advantage of it. Netanyahu understands this,
and hopefully will tell the collective world to "kiss his a--". Funny
how Clinton, Baker, and the rest aren't calling for me to give my San
Diego home to the Mexicans. I mean, after ll, it was their land
"first", was it not? The hypocrisy of those who stand in judgement of
Netanyahu and Israel never ceases to amaze me.
Randy
>--
Moritz Rothschild
In <murray-ya02408000...@news.jonction.net>
mur...@macpro.ca (Murray Kastner) writes:
>
>In article <59lssi$f...@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com>, a...@pobox.com
wrote:
>
>> December 23, 1996
>> ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE
>>
>> Mideast: Bibi Agonistes
>
>(snip... much deleted)
>
>> The popularity of Israel's present Government may suffer as it
resists
>> pressure to part with the nation's patrimony. Netanyahu's reward
will
>> come when his unfashionable realism delivers durable peace.
>
>Holey moley Safire! William sure is articulate and I sure hope he is
right
>(and hopelessly right-wing), but I fear that he may be proven
disastrously
>wrong. What a deadly game Netanyahu is playing... I sure hope he knows
what
>he is doing... Empowering the lunatic fringes can backfire
horrendously.
>
>--
>
Hate to disagree with you but Safire hit the nail right on the head.
Uri Dan wrote a fabulous article Sun in the Post too.
Murray Kastner
> >In article <59lssi$f...@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com>, a...@pobox.com wrote:
>
> >> December 23, 1996
> >> ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE
> >>
> >> Mideast: Bibi Agonistes
>
> >(snip... much deleted)
>
> >> The popularity of Israel's present Government may suffer as it resists
> >> pressure to part with the nation's patrimony. Netanyahu's reward will
> >> come when his unfashionable realism delivers durable peace.
>
> >Holey moley Safire! William sure is articulate and I sure hope he is right
> >(and hopelessly right-wing), but I fear that he may be proven disastrously
> >wrong. What a deadly game Netanyahu is playing... I sure hope he knows what
> >he is doing... Empowering the lunatic fringes can backfire horrendously...
>
> Yes, but he makes an excellent point about how the Arabs are feeling
> empowered by the world opinion being so much against .il right now.
> The Palestinians can *do no wrong* in the eyes of the world press, and
> they are bound to take advantage of it. Netanyahu understands this,
> and hopefully will tell the collective world to "kiss his a--".
It was Netanyahu who empowered the Palestinians by his three-month
abstention from contact with a crucial peace partner. Netanyahu can tell
whomsoever he wants to kiss his ass but the fact remains that more than two
million people are steaming and this makes for a very unhealthy situation.
Perhaps you admire such brinksmanship but I think it is taking unnecessary
risks in a very volatile situation. Like I said before, I hope you are
right and I am wrong but I certainly wouldn't gamble with blood.
Realize that the fundamentalists and extremists on both sides are the ones
most empowered. That may sit well with you but it makes me very uneasy and
I think it was quite unnecessary.
Funny
> how Clinton, Baker, and the rest aren't calling for me to give my San
> Diego home to the Mexicans. I mean, after ll, it was their land
> "first", was it not?
I don't understand the analogy. I would see we Jews as like the Mexicans
and the Indians and the Palestinians like you in your San Diego home and
you were just disenfranchised. But I am sure you don't see it this way; you
choose to see it through your own viewpoint. Bottom line is that you can
keep millions of people disenfranchised for just so long and then you get
what you sow. In the case of Israel, the harvest is already partially in
the brutalization of too many generations of Israeli youngsters.
The hypocrisy of those who stand in judgement of
> Netanyahu and Israel never ceases to amaze me.
The hyposricy of those who stand in their San Diego homes ready to fight
the Palestinians down to the last Israeli kids never ceases to amaze me.
Shalom,
,\\urray
--
Moritz Rothschild
In <murray-ya0236800...@news.jonction.net>
it's ok to give their country away to those avowed to destroy them. --
>