By the Grace of G-d22 Av, 5740

P.S. For understandable reasons this addendum follows separately and is addressed to you, though according to protocol it should have been addressed directly to the Editor and Publisher of the B’nei Brith Messenger. However, not having had any previous contact with him and since this communication contains a plea for action, it would probably have come as a surprise to him and perhaps also “put him on the spot.” Hence, I am sending it to you for passing it on to him with your recommendation, especially since you wrote to me in your capacity as Executive Editor and General Manager of the B.B.M.

Following Jewish custom, I will begin with a prefatory remark apropos to the name of your publication - “B’nai B’rith Messenger.” As the name implies, its purpose is to convey a message to its readers, and through them, to their families and friends, who are B'nai B’rith — “Children of the Covenant.” The reference is of course to the Covenant between G-d and His people, beginning with the first Jew, our Father Abraham. According to this Covenant, G-d assured Abraham ’לזרעך נתתי את הארץ הזאת גו “Unto your seed I have given this land...”¹ which He reaffirmed again before the birth of Isaac, “And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant... and I will give unto you and to your seed after you, the land of your sojourn, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.”²

Since the Bible is held sacred not only by Jews but also by Christians and Moslems, no one can honestly question the Jews’ title to the Land of Israel. Indeed, in accordance with this Covenant, G-d led our people out of Egyptian bondage into the Promised Land and our people took possession of it, and, since the time of King David, made Jerusalem the eternal capital of our land, long before any of the present-day capitals of the world came into being. With a brief interlude of 70 years of the Babylonian Exile, our people dwelt in the land of Israel for 1340 years (2488-3828) and even after G-d saw fit to send our people into the present exile and dispersion, there has always been a Jewish presence and Yishuv our land to this day, while all Jews throughout the Diaspora longed and prayed (three times daily) for our return to our homeland and everlasting possession - “May our eyes behold Your return to Zion in mercy.”³

Yet of late, our little Eretz Yisroel has been challenged by the very nations who, by force of arms, repeatedly sought to rob us of our everlasting possession.

Sadder still, there appeared some Jewish leaders who, for the sake of peace, or rather the illusion of peace, and frightened by threat of further violence, in the midst of a hostile and callous world, were prepared to and actually did, surrender portions of our land, in the ill-conceived belief that our enemies could be appeased. Moreover, contrary to all experience and common sense, which has demonstrated again and again that every appeasement and concession only invited stronger pressures for more avaricious demands, there still are those among our own people who persist in following this dismal course; the so-called Camp David accord is only the culmination of this ill-fated and self-defeating policy.

As you may have heard, when the Camp David negotiations were initiated, I considered it my sacred duty to call attention to the true nature of this disastrous expediency. There was no basis in law nor in justice nor in reality to give in to pressure to sign an accord and treaty, by which one party gives all and the other party takes all; namely, the first giving away tangible and vital resources in terms of territory, fortifications, airfields, oil wells, dismantling of settlements, etc., all vital to is security, while the other gives in return no more than promises, such as the establishment of communications, exchange of ambassadors and “normalization” of relations, which could be revoked at any moment under one pretext or another. I warned that far from bringing real and lasting peace, this “accord” would only whet our enemies’ appetite for more grabs, encouraged by the weakened security position of their adversary. I also warned that it was folly to put one’s trust in the USA’s part of this agreement, for it was obvious that the USA was heavily slanted in favor of the Arab position. Since the signing of the Camp David accord and treaty, the consequences it has spawned turned out to be even worse than feared. Now, some 18 months later, everyone can clearly see that Egypt never intended to keep its promises fully. Right from the moment it took over one slice of Sinai after another, it broke its pledge to keep these zones demilitarized, though for the sake of expediency this matter has been hushed up. Even at this moment Egypt is busily engaged in aggressive military preparations (the construction of tunnels under the Suez is but one glaring example). This should be no surprise in view of the record of broken Egyptian pledges after the Yom Kippur war and ever since 1948. At the same time it is demanding and obtaining from the US an ever increasing supply of the most sophisticated weaponry, not to mention such other “moderate” Arab states as Saudia Arabia, Jordan and even Iraq.

Such is the “even-handed” policy of our US government. Be it noted also, that even in regard to its own obligations in connection with the Camp David accord, particularly the assurance of a supply of oil to compensate for the surrender of the oil wells in Sinai which were developed by Jewish ingenuity and resources, it has found a convenient loophole, claiming that the situation is not “critical”, as stipulated; which makes it necessary to spend millions of dollars in overcharges on the open market, thus putting a critical squeeze on the economy of Eretz Yisroel which is in dire straits as it is.

All the above is surely well known to you and since you are connected with the news media you probably know better than I what is going on behind the scenes in Washington and Cairo.

The question is: Now that we have a Camp David agreement — signed, sealed and delivered, don’t we have to live up to it? would it be legally and morally right to abrogate it unilaterally?

There are two major answers to this question. First of all, an agreement is binding on either party only as long as the other is carrying out its part. As noted above and as a matter of record, the Egyptians have not acted in good faith and have broken and are breaking many of their pledges under the agreement. (To cite one more glaring example, which should have created a much greater public shock than the ripples it stirred: by their own admission when the fact was discovered, the Egyptians had been reporting to other Arab nations, as well as the PLO, on the negotiations conducted with the representatives of Eretz Yisroel under the Camp David accord.) In view of the systematic violations of the agreement by the Egyptians, the other party need not feel either legally or morally obligated to abide by it.

The second answer, which is equally valid, is that the Camp David accord was based on a presumption that invalidated it in the first place. Clearly, no government official has the right to sign away the security of the people and country he represents, nor the security of the next generation and subsequent generations, for no person can possibly have such a mandate, actual or implied. Certainly in the present case no such mandate was given; on the contrary, there was an explicit and expressed unanimity that the security of the land of Israel and its 3 1/2 million Jews is not negotiable. Since the Camp David agreement does indeed jeopardize the security of the people and land of Israel, no signature or even ratification can be binding.

Incidentally, it has now been publicly admitted by a high-ranking member of the government of Eretz Yisroel and leading representatives in the negotiations that the Camp David agreement was a mistake and that the terms, at any rate, should have been reversed, namely - that Egypt should have been made to comply with its obligations before surrendering the Sinai and all that went with it.

In summary, despite the political differences, dissention and confusion in certain Jewish circles, both in the Land of Israel and here in the USA, there is no Jew in the world who will permit the thought of genocide of the Jewish people, “even” in the very Land of Israel and we have a right to expect all decent non-Jews to share in this determination.

Hence, Jews everywhere must stop bickering and must demand in one voice: No more pressures!

And this is where my request comes in. I do not know what you and the Editor and Publisher of the B.B.M. think personally as individuals, about the situation outlined above; nor am I adequately familiar with the position which the B.B.M. has advocated in the past. I do believe however, that a publication that carries the banner of B’nai Brith (in the true sense of the term, as noted above), now in its 84th year, has the primary obligation to carry the message of the Divine Covenant to its numerous readers, many of whom are leading personalities in various Jewish communities, the message of the Torah, Toras Chaim and Toras Emes, namely: That Eretz Yisroel is ours by Divine Covenant, as recognized also by all believers in the sanctity of the Bible; and the facts of “life” and “truth” are that Jews are not “occupiers” or “aggressors” in their homeland, but it is only a restitution of what is rightfully ours by Divine Will and grace, not by the “false grace” of the United Nations.

And we cannot afford to be magnanimous and give away any part of our tiny land by the threat of force, since it is a matter of vital security of our Jewish people as a whole.

To conclude on the timely note of coming from Tisha b’Av and approaching the month of Elul, the month of special Divine grace and mercy, may G-d indeed reveal His mercy to the world and to our Jewish people and bring us the true and complete Ge’ulo through Moshiach Tzidkeinu, which will also bring about the perfection of the world under the sovereignty of the Almighty. Indeed, everyone of us can do much to hasten the realization of this Divine promise through an ongoing movement of Teshuvah — return to the Jewish essence, which is inseparably intertwined with Torah and mitzvos and living Yiddishkeit in the everyday life, as our great teacher and Guide of all times ruled⁴: ישראל עושין תשובה ומיד הן נגאלין.

With blessing,