April 1994 Personal Letter

Dear Friends.

The Lord has done me a favor this month as I started out to write my letter to you. I was afraid I would be overly emotional on the matter of the shootings at Hebron. I’m one of those who feels very deeply about the land of Israel — as would be appropriate for all biblical people — and I have very mixed feelings about that incident.

I’m very upset by the posturing of the Israeli government about making peace with the P.L.O.; I believe it can’t be done. I believe it will lead to something very close to the destruction of Israel. if the Lord tarries. I am also upset by the antidemocratic attitude of the fringe group of settlers from whom the deranged Baruch Goldstein came. These Orthodox Jewish radicals. many from the U.S., have no sound scriptural idea of the meaning of Israel. and indeed. some of their brethren of the cloth oppose its very existence. And finally. I am extremely upset by the pious pronouncements of Arafat and company. After 46 years of nonstop Arab terrorism against Israel. they finally have had a lesson in how terrorism really feels. If they had their way and the weapons to accomplish it. they would now wipe out the entire state of Israel border-to-border, their goal all along.

So I was about to undertake a very difficult task. that of writing a letter about a subject on which I can find no agreement with any of the sides. But I picked up The New York Times shortly after the Hebron incident and found a wonderful article by one of my favorite writers. A. M. Rosenthal had this to say:

The Worth of Israel

For all Israelis but a handful the massacre of the Muslims at prayer was one of the saddest days in the country’s history.

That fact does nothing to assuage grief or diminish the crime. Still, it does tell a great deal about the gap between Arab and Israeli societies — and the importance of not allowing shock or sorrow to overwhelm the awareness of the difference.

As long as the difference goes unmentioned, as long as the world’s politicians, clergymen, intellectuals and journalists act as if it does not exist, they diminish the chances of peace, or even easement between Arab and Jew in the Mideast.

Baruch Goldstein committed a monstrous act of terrorism that cannot be softened by talk of his rage or sense of injustice. But collectively and individually, Israelis denounced the crime; some even saw it as a time for national contrition.

After the massacre, the President of Israel went to Hebron to bow his head. He said nothing worse had happened in the history of Zionism. In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin set up a top-level investigation, ordered settlers deemed dangerous to be detained, disarmed or arrested. Benjamin Netanyahu, the opposition Likud leader, said the crime was a “despicable abomination.” In New York, Jews prayed for the Muslim dead in a Christian church.

And now, it ts healthy and wise to ask some questions. When 22 Jews in an Istanbul synagogue were murdered at prayer, did Yasir Arafat visit Israel offices to express sorrow? When Pan Am 103 was bombed out of the sky, did Arab states immediately begin an investigation? When Israeli athletes were murdered in Munich or Israeli cities hit with Iraqi missiles, was weeping heard in Arab streets — or rejoicing?

Another difference: The mosque murderer was not ordered into action by state-sponsored terrorist squads like those that have moved out from Syria, Iran and Lebanon to kill Israelis, dissident Palestinians and Westerners decade after decade — and do to this day. No services of regret. What Arab president bows his head?

If we let these things go unsaid, we become parties to the offense of moral equivalence, the curse of Western society. In the days of the Communist empire, it was committed by the left and the stupid. Essentially they said that people were suffering under capitalism as well as communism, so there was no great moral judgment to make between the two.

For a half-century, moral equivalence has been shield and weapon for those who oppose the existence of Israel or find a particular Israeli government not to their liking. An act of repression or violence in Israel’s democratic society becomes worse than the built-in repression and murder that are the very basis of Arab states at war with Israel.

In the time of Soviet power, moral equivalence was the cover-up for a leaning toward left-wing totalitarianism. About Israel, since independence, moral equivalence often masks a taste for third-world totalitarianism.

Israel’s Labor Government does not talk much about moral equivalence. Why bother when there’s no body to negotiate with but despotic states and movements?

Silence does not change reality. It ls the nature and history of Israel’s neighbors that make so many Israelis fear an independent Palestine. They see it as one more repressive hate-filled state on their borders, sworn to eat deeper into Israel.

The freely elected Israeli government has already made fundamental concessions that could lead to Palestinian independence in a few years: recognition of the P.L.O., a Palestinian legislature and policy-army, steps toward giving up most of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, and a new untested military survival strategy based on that territorial loss.

How many Israeli settlers would remain on the West Bank to put their safety in the hands of the Palestinian police? Patience, Mr. Arafat; Judea and Samaria can yet be Jew-free.

After the massacre the Arabs ask for more concessions as the price of negotiation. For the West or Russia to back the demands would be cynicism and cowardice.

But for Israel to agree would be an even greater error. Israel would then become party to a judgment of moral equivalence that would deny the worth of Israel as a democratic nation, set alone among the dictatorships of the Middle East.

Israel ts very important to this ministry, and we travel there all the time. If you want to become familiar with the situation on the ground and at the same time review the kingdom where you will reside for a thousand much happier upcoming years, write in for your summer tour brochure (May 29 – June 13). And stay tuned — we’ll be bringing you a new series made on location in Israel very shortly.

And pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

Your messenger,