Since 1967, all of the Israeli leaders have tried to pursue a policy of surrendering land, which Israel had won in bloody wars for survival, to their sworn enemies, in exchange for the Arabs' acceptance of the Jewish state. While a feasible alternative course of action - the immediate annexation of all gained territories - was available, it was not even considered. This is especially strange since the lands of Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha) that returned to Israel's control have never formed an internationally recognized part of an Arab state. This is simply puzzling since the Jewish state did not arrive in the Middle East by chance.

2. NOT THE WAY OF ALL NATIONS
"It has come back. It has confounded persecution and outlived exile to become the only nation in the world that is governing itself in the same territory, under the same name, and with the same religion and same language as it did three thousand years ago," remarked Tuchman in awe.(2) Perhaps the Israeli leaders were simply scared to see themselves as rulers of a big country? Perhaps the Galut [Exile] mentality, instilled in the Jews for two millennia, did not allow them to picture their state as any bigger than a ghetto-sized entity? Perhaps the European-born Israeli leaders were unable to understand the logic of the Middle East? After being deprived of military power for two thousand years the Jews simply forgot how all other states were created. They forgot that even the "bastion of democracy" - the United States - came into being through acquisition of the lands of others. As Barbara Tuchman put it, "Territory lost through the fortunes of war is a commonplace in history. What is Texas but a 267,339 square miles of Mexico settled by Americans and then forcibly declared independent?"

It will be a task for future historians to try to find out why the Jewish state was so stubborn in pursuing these counter-productive policies. Maybe they will be able to understand why Israel rejected the facts and the logic of ongoing events in the search for peace - the nonexistent commodity of the Middle East. Maybe they will be able to explain why the Jewish state ignored the lessons of relations between Middle Eastern countries that demonstrated the complete uselessness of the peace agreements in this part of the world. (It is a well known fact that the war between Iran and Iraq started very soon after both countries signed a peace agreement. It is also worth noting that Kuwait was supporting Iraq during the whole course of the Iraq-Iran War, but this did not stop Saddam Hussein from "swallowing" this staunch and loyal supporter as soon as he deemed it appropriate).

3. HIDING ONE'S HEAD IN THE SAND
The Israeli leaders are dealing with the realities of the Middle-East as if they do not exist. They are cutting off pieces of their homeland with the Arab scissors of hatred and belligerence, in the desire to fit a coffin-sized Jewish state into a "peaceful" Middle East. As has happened many times in Jewish history, the Jews are trying to create for themselves a separate world in which they can live and forget all the troubles that surround them, trying not to allow anyone from the outside to come in. They think that if they sign "peace agreements" with the Arabs and then lock themselves in a self-built ghetto, the Arabs will acquiesce to their presence and accept Israel's existence. This approach is nothing but a clear exercise in perversion, a simple wooden-headedness, described by Tuchman in the following way:

"Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts. It is epitomized in a historian's statement about Phillip II of Spain, the surpassing wooden-head of all sovereigns: "No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence" (1).

It seems that today Ehud Barak has surpassed even Phillip II of Spain in his wooden-headedness. His preconceived fixed notion of a "peaceful Middle East" forces him to completely ignore the core values that were placed at the foundation of the Jewish state. In order to obtain a piece of paper with the word "Peace" scribbled on it, Israeli leaders are sacrificing the reason for the creation of the Jewish state. Nobody argues that Israel would love to live in peace with her neighbors, but it cannot sell its Jewish soul for it. The Jews cannot accept this Faustian deal. A peaceful Middle East is a utopia. A Middle East without the Jewish state is a fast-approaching reality. As Avigdor Lieberman, leader of Israel's Beiteinu party, said recently in an interview in Jerusalem, "The country [Israel] desperately needs cardinal changes, perhaps even a revolution. If this does not happen, in twenty years Israel will simply disappear. We already stand on the edge of abyss today."(3).

It is hard to believe that things were completely different only thirty years ago. Barbara Tuchman wrote in the beginning of 1967:

"With all its problems, Israel has one commanding advantage - a sense of purpose: to survive... It is conscious of fulfilling destiny. It knows it must not go under now, that it must endure. Israelis may not have affluence… but they have what affluence tends to smother: a motive. On the whole and for the present, the pace-setters of the nation have… a knowledge why they are there and where they are going"(2).

4. A QUESTION OF VISION
Thirty three years after these words were written the pace-setters and the majority of Israelis have no knowledge whatsoever why they are there and where they are going. The problem is that the dedication of the masses has been lost and that materialism has displaced the idealism of the early days of the state. The problem is in the surrender of the Jewish and Zionist ideology. The fabric of the Israeli society has been emasculated of its motive - to provide a secure place on the Earth for the Jewish people. Today the Israeli Left is much more concerned with the well being of the Arabs than with the fate of the Jewish people. The Jews living in Yesha are second class citizens for the Israeli Left. For them, these dedicated Zionists are the hindrance that prevents the "peace" from happening. They have convinced themselves that if the Jews from Yesha are expelled and if Israel rids herself of the lands of Yesha, the Arabs will resign themselves to a peaceful coexistence with the Jews. Although the Arabs keep reminding the Jews that the situation is much more complicated, the Jews have somehow forgotten that the issue of the "land" is only a part of the problem. As recently as on May 1, Azmi al-Khawajah, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, wrote in Ramallah's newspaper Al Ayyam:

"Barak, Peres, and Beilin should not forget that the issue of refugees is crucial to the Palestinian people. It has been the basis for the emergence of Palestinian resistance since the fifties and until now. The Palestinian resistance in the Gaza strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria has basically emerged from Palestinian refugee camps. Similar to the issues of territories and Jerusalem, the refugees issue cannot be ignored and an independent Palestinian state must be established with Jerusalem its capital"(4).

Those who think that Israel is gearing towards a quick "peace" should temper their expectations. They are dead wrong if they think that the Arabs will be satisfied only with land. The Arabs want more and they know very well that they will get everything since the precedent has already been established. The Arabs know that the Jews do not have red lines anymore. Therefore, it is only a matter of time for the next Israeli concession to be presented to them. The Arabs have no doubts that after Israel accepted the legitimacy of the PLO, the withdrawal from Yesha, the tacit agreement to allow the PLO to be present in Jerusalem, the Jewish state will agree to the "return of the refugees" in spite of Israel's official position today.

1. Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1984.
2. Barbara Tuchman, Practicing History. Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1981.
3. "Novoe Russkoe Slovo", Interview with Avigdor Lieberman, 5/03/00.
4. The Zionist Organization of America's Israel News Connection (ZINC), 5/04/00
5. The Palestinian Presence in Lebanon: a Complex Chess Game. 5/01/00. http://www.freelebanon.com.

Many years ago the people of what was then the Soviet Union behaved so slavishly and submissively that the following joke became popular: "A group of people is called for a general meeting. They are told that next day they will all be hanged, and they are asked if they have any questions. One person stands up and asks: 'What about the ropes? Do we have to bring our own, or will the trade union provide them?´"

From the actions of Israeli Jews, it appears that they are asking this question almost every day. The level of national degradation is absolutely impossible to comprehend. It is even more noticeable in comparison with the behavior of the Arabs, who proudly use the word "MY" when talking about the land, in contrast to the Jews who are so easily relinquishing this most precious of man's commodities.

"The Jerusalem Report" wrote in its May issue about Fuad Rian, an Arab who has been sleeping in his wheat fields since April 5, protesting the building of the Trans-Israel Highway. For Fuad - "Land is life." For the Israeli leaders - land is just a bargaining chip. The haggling associated with the squandering of the Jewish lands of Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha) is absolutely shameful. "The Jerusalem Post" reported on April 25 that the "PA sources said Clinton conveyed to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat that Barak is ready to hand over 80% of the West Bank and withdraw from Jerusalem suburbs"(1). Another "Palestinian official" said that "in back-channel talks, Israel has offered the Palestinians more than 90 percent of the West Bank, if they agree to delay the issue of Jerusalem for a few years"(1). At the same time "other sources said Barak expressed a willingness to concede 70% to 80% of the West Bank to a Palestinian state"(1).

While most of the Jewish media is ashamed to use the real name of the primordial Jewish land, calling it "the West Bank," the Arabs speak absolutely differently about the land that fell under their control (the Sinai was conquered from Turkey by Britain in 1917 without any Egyptian help and simply given to Egypt by the British government). On the anniversary of the "liberation" of Sinai Samir Ragab wrote in the Egyptian Gazette, "Egyptians believe it unthinkable that we could relinquish an inch of Arab land, because that land is the nation's pride and dignity"(2).

2. A MATTER OF PRIDE & DIGNITY

Ben-Ami's logic is so simple that one can easy predict what is going to be said by the Israeli leaders after they relinquish all lands of Yesha. Some Minister will state then: "There are no remaining territories outside the green line, so as the process with the PA moves forward, there will be no other alternative but to relinquish the land of Israel proper."

The virus of national degradation has infected all Israeli institutions. On April 24 the General Security Service (GSS), the organization that should know all about the Arabs, recommended that the government release terrorists from prison who have killed and/or injured Israelis in terrorist attacks. The GSS has called for terrorists affiliated with Yassir Arafat's Fatah faction be released from Israeli prisons. It is one thing when the Israeli man in the street suggests to release Fatah members from prison but it is completely different when this is recommended by the GSS.

It is hard to believe that the Shin Bet is not familiar with the text of Fatah's Constitution, which appears on the Fatah website. Hence, it is puzzling that Shin Bet calls for the release of people whose movement's essential principles consider "liberating Palestine as a national obligation" (Article 5), for whom "the Israeli existence in Palestine is a Zionist invasion with a colonial expansive base" (Article 8) ; whose goal is "complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence"(Article 12) ; for whom "armed public revolution is the inevitable method to liberating Palestine" (Article 17) and that advocates "opposing any political solution offered as an alternative to demolishing the Zionist occupation in Palestine" (Article 22) (4).

4. A COMPLEX GUILT COMPLEX

One must admit that the Arabs have done an excellent job in convincing the Jews that they, the Jews, are the occupiers who are responsible for all the sufferings of the Palestinian Arabs. The Arabs have managed to instill in the Jews the complex of guilt and now demand that the Jews acknowledge "their responsibility in the expulsion of nearly one million Palestinians from their homes in 1948" (5). The editorial on the official PA website declared that the "Palestinians, so far, have been denied the basic right to see their suffering recognized by its perpetrators"(5). Reuters reported on March 13 that Hanan Ashrawi, a prominent PA legislator, speaking in Washington, demanded that Israel should "make a public historical apology to the Palestinians for the grave historical injustice they have suffered"(6). As Ashrawi said: "An apology to the Palestinian people is long overdue -- a recognition of the historical fact of 1948 and the ongoing victimization of the Palestinians"(6).

Ashrawi is right, it is a "grave historical injustice" that the Israeli leaders do not want to allow the world and the Israeli Jews to learn the real facts. It is a pity that the Israeli propaganda machine is completely rusted. Otherwise, it would have emphasized that Khaled Al-Azm, who was Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war, deplored the Arab tactics and the subsequent exploitation of the refugees, in his 1972 memoirs, where he wrote,

"Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of refugees… while it is we who made them to leave… We brought disaster upon… Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave… We have rendered them dispossessed… We have accustomed them to begging… We have participated in lowering their moral and social level… Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon… men, women and children - all this in service of political purposes…"(7).

Khaled Al-Azm was not the only Arab leader who pointed his finger on the real perpetrators of the sufferings of the Palestinian Arabs. The late King Hussein of Jordan said in 1960 that "since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem in an irresponsible manner… They have used the Palestinian people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous, I could say, even criminal."

While the official Palestinian propaganda does its best to obfuscate this issue, it is important to note that the Palestinian Arabs know that their leaders are guilty of creating the refugee problem. While it would be unrealistic to expect that rank and file Arabs blame only themselves, it is revealing that in a recent survey 30.4% Israeli Arabs and 36.1% Palestinian Arabs said that "Israel and the Arab side are to the same extent responsible for the creation of the refugee problem in 1948" (8).

Lacking knowledge of history, the Israelis think that perhaps through submissiveness and appeasement they will pacify the Arabs. If this is so, they simply demonstrate a complete ignorance in understanding the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Israelis can relinquish land, they can free Fatah "fighters," they can even admit their "guilt" but none of these will change the Arabs' attitude towards Israel. As Hizbullah secretary general Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview with Time Magazine's Cairo bureau chief Scott MacLeod, "Let us be clear. In our opinion, the Jewish state is an illegitimate and illegal state and will remain so in the eyes of the Arab and Muslim people, even if it is 50 years, 100 years, 200 years" (9)

The Arabs have learned the lingo that is acceptable to the world community and constantly use it in order to reach their goals. This is why, while leading a war against the Jews, they call it peace. This is why they suddenly fell in love with democracy, so cherished by enlightened mankind. As Nasrallah said:

"We are not saying that we want to throw the Jews into the sea. There are some Islamic scholars who gave a proposal: let the Palestinian people return to Palestine and let us have a referendum inside Palestine with the Muslims, Jews and Christians. And then we will decide about the destiny of this land. This is a democratic solution" (9).

While it is questionable that the state that Nasrallah has in mind is going to be democratic, one thing is perfectly clear - it is not going to be a Jewish state. What can be better proof than the words of Chulud Badawi, the chairwoman of the Arab students' organization of Haifa University, who was quoted in an article published on April 28 in the local Haifa District newspaper "Echo of the Suburbs" ("Hed Hakraiot"),

"We shall not stop our struggle until Israel, in order to become a State of all its citizens, will cease to exist as a Jewish State. And because symbols are important, then our struggle is also about the annulment of "Hatikva" as the national anthem, and the disappearance of the blue and white flag with the Star of David in it as the State's flag."

If Israel continues at the same pace along the road of national degradation, Chulud Badawi will not have to wait long for her dream to come true.

If, in 1990, someone had predicted that within a decade, Yasser Arafat would receive the Nobel Peace Prize and Pope John Paul II would place a prayer in the Western Wall in Jerusalem, he would probably have been sent to a psychiatrist and may have even been committed to an institution. However, both of these improbable events have now occurred. There is even a relationship between the two episodes, and the key to understanding the linkage lies in the media's use of the term "Journey to the Holy Land" to describe the recent Papal visit to Israel.

Until this pilgrimage, Israel's media - both written and electronic - had never referred to this region as "The Holy Land." The radical change of approach, in my view, sheds light on what has now taken place on the spiritual and political levels. In a real sense, the Pope was not merely visiting Jordan, Israel and the areas controlled by the PLO. He was visiting the Holy Land. The question that must be addressed in this regard: After more than two decades in the position, and after visiting more than 100 countries, why did this sick, frail, aging, Pope finally visit the Holy Land? After all, this is the setting of both the Old and New Testament, two books viewed as the foundation of Christianity! Why did this well-travelled Pope not make his trip sooner?

2. THEOLOGY

The Catholic Church has been plagued by a serious theological problem since the establishment of the State of Israel. In fact, it would not be an overstatement to say that Israel presents one of the greatest religious dilemmas facing the Church since its inception. At the heart of the problem is Israeli rule over Jerusalem's Christian holy places, against the backdrop of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel - some two thousand years after our people rejected the Christian savior and the brand of salvation he offered. The Church's long-standing portrayal of the Jews as a despised people, because we rejected the "true faith," is challenged by Israeli, Jewish control over Christian holy sites.

Although the Vatican has established diplomatic relations with Israel, it still does not recognize Jewish control over Jerusalem. In keeping with this approach, the Church would like to see the Old City come under international control. For the Church, looming over the Jerusalem issue is the very existence of the State of Israel: Does it represent the fruition of biblical prophesy? If the state is truly the embodiment of historic Israel, where does that leave the Church, whose believers were supposed to have replaced the Jews as the "Chosen of Heaven?"

3. PAPAL PACT WITH ARAFAT

In the agreement signed between the Vatican and the PLO several weeks before the Pope's Holy Land junket, the two sides agreed that "an equitable solution for the issue of Jerusalem, based on international resolutions, is fundamental for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, and that unilateral decisions and actions altering the specific character and status of Jerusalem are morally and legally unacceptable." The Pope and Arafat called for a "special statute" for Jerusalem, safeguarding "freedom of religion and conscience for all; the equality before the law of the three monotheistic religions and their institutions and followers in the City etc."

Anyone familiar with this region's history probably realizes that the aforementioned deal totally ignores the fact that only under Israeli law have any of these things been actually accomplished! Israeli control over the Old City marked the first time in 2000 years that all religions had free access to their respective holy places. Neither the Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks, British nor anyone else gave free access to all religions. In our own time, under the Jordanians, all the synagogues were destroyed or turned into stables or garbage dumps; tombstones were made into floors for latrines, and Jews were not allowed access to holy places in violation of the armistice agreements of 1949. Hussein did not, however, interfere with Church property and access to Christian holy places. In short, the Pope and Arafat invented a problem, a dilemma that can only be solved by- you guessed it - the "internationalization" of Jerusalem.

4. BEN GURION VS. RABIN

Let us now return to our original question: What has happened over the last few years that has finally brought Pope John Paul II to "the Holy Land" and to the State of Israel? One of the possible answers to that question- if not the only answer - is the Oslo Agreement.

When the Peel Commission visited Palestine in the late 1930's to investigate the Arab riots of the time, David Ben Gurion was asked to document the Jewish claim to Palestine. Ben Gurion's response was to raise high a Bible and to declare: "This book is the Jewish deed to the Land of Israel." For Ben Gurion, the European-born Jewish socialist, the State of Israel meant the continuation of historic Israel. That was the logic according to which he later based the Law of Return. "The Law of Return is not an immigration law," Ben Gurion told the Knesset at the time. "It is a law expressing the permanence of Israeli history. This law lays down the official principle that lay behind the establishment of the State of Israel...The state does not grant permission to immigrate here. The right of Jews to return to Israel preceded the State of Israel, and it was this right that built the state."

Ben Gurion's concept of Jewish nationhood and historic continuity was the precise theological problem that, for decades, aggravated the Church.

At Oslo, this all changed. The late Yitzchak Rabin struck an agreement with the PLO terror organization, the foundation of which was forfeiting parts of our historic Jewish homeland to the Arabs. Rabin even explicitly and callously referred to the Bible as not being "a real estate deed." In contrast to what Ben Gurion had claimed, Israel's leaders at Oslo essentially declared that the State of Israel is, in fact, not the successor of historic Israel.

5. DIPLOMATIC FRUIT

Soon after the signing of the Oslo, the Vatican agreed to diplomatic relations with Israel. Question: Why did this take 46 years? Some say that the Vatican long hesitated to recognize Israel, fearing what would happen to Church interests and to Christian believers in Moslem countries. Now that Arab entities were signing diplomatic deals with the Jewish state - this view maintains - there was no longer a concern that Vatican recognition of Israel would enrage the Arabs. This is a neat theory, but is incorrect for two simple reasons: Despite Oslo, the Arabs have still not come to terms with the existence of the State of Israel; in fact, our main "peace partner," the PLO, views Oslo as nothing more than a strategic step towards the eventual destruction of Israel. Secondly, Oslo, in and of itself, does not solve the theological problem the State of Israel had posed for the Church

The difference, as far as the Church is concerned, is the logic behind the signing of the Oslo agreement, a logic that has once and for all solved the Church's theological problem. Until 1994, Israelis understood that the state constituted the historic successor of ancient Israel. At Oslo, as mentioned above, Israel's political leaders changed that. The Vatican is sensitive to this development.

The Vatican is also fully aware of the fact that the Waqf authorities on the Temple Mount are destroying all evidence of a historical Jewish presence there - and the government of Israel is doing nothing about it.

The Vatican is fully aware that the present leadership of the State of Israel does not ascribe any holiness to the land. The Minister of Defense in the previous government even referred to Hevron - the cradle of the Jewish nation and the burial place of its founders - as a "pile of old stones."

The Vatican is fully aware that our government is ready and willing to concede parts of Jerusalem to the PLO, and that the burial place of the biblical Joseph in Shechem is now located in PLO-controlled territory.

The Vatican is also fully aware that the Israeli High Court of Justice has ruled that the Jewish Agency and the Government of Israel cannot discriminate in favor of Jews in the distribution of publicly-owned lands.

These are only a few of the developments that have put the Church at ease.

The Pope indeed came to "The Holy Land." When the Israeli announcers on our secular television stations refer to his trip as the "Journey to the Holy Land," they are sadly only using his definition and not their own. The ones who agree with the Pope's definition are, oddly enough, the religious and traditional Jews who have not lost their faith in the meaning of the Jewish state to our nation's ultimate destiny.