In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Israeli Views of the Land of Israel/Palestine
  • S. Ilan Troen (bio)

Introduction

The Jewish claim to the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel) is a very large topic with a historical pedigree thousands of years old. These claims were long rooted in a Jewish peoplehood as defined in a religious culture until the growing secularization of Jews during the 19th century shifted claims from an exclusively religious basis to one that incorporated increasing reliance on secular concepts, particularly nationalism with its demand for a polity. This was just as well since in the contemporary world, religiously-based claims are viewed as parochial. Secular claims are more generally considered universal and therefore appropriate for public debate. In other words, claims rooted in a religious tradition may be effective when directed to fellow-believers; claims expressed in secular terms are more acceptable in extra-communal discourse. Thus, claims to Eretz Israel or Palestine that rely solely on the Covenant between God and the Jews or on the status of Palestine as a Waqf may persuade Jews and Muslims respectively, but have lesser effect when brought to courts of public opinion and the academy.

Nevertheless, it is important to set forth both sets of claims: the internal and the external. Both are numerous, diverse, and even contradictory, and have appeal to large numbers of Jews within and beyond Israel. There is no one claim that commands universal acceptance although there are widely shared beliefs. This results in the ever-present cacophony of Zionist and Israeli discourse within the reality of common bonds to one another and to an ancient homeland. This outline of Jewish views of the right to the land necessarily takes into account that which is shared as well as differences that divide. [End Page 100]

The People and the Land

The validity of the claim articulated at the beginning of Israel’s Declaration of Independence—that “The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people”—has been acknowledged by religious and secular Jews alike. For millennia, Jews have understood themselves as belonging to a people whose origins are described in the Bible. The chapters of Genesis that focus on the forefathers - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—narrate the origins and foretell the creation of a people that will persist throughout history. These founding stories are the roots of the nationhood Jews accept as an historical fact.

This founding narrative is also part of the cultural heritage of Christian Europe, where approximately 80% of world Jewry lived when the Zionist movement began. European Christians accepted the authenticity of the Bible even as they believed that the New Testament had supplanted the Old. The “Testament” (in two senses of the word) both bore “witness” and provided “evidence” to the antiquity of Jews as a people and of their connection to the Land of Israel. While since the mid-19th century biblical scholarship has questioned various parts of the biblical narrative, the text’s fundamental historicity is nearly universally accepted. This “Judeo-Christian” tradition supported the validity and vitality of the Jewish historic connection to Palestine

Zionists customarily called the land to which they returned “Eretz Israel” [Land of Israel], as it is termed in sacred texts. “Palestine” is the name applied by the Romans in the second century c.e., in their attempt to terminate the connection between rebellious Jews and their land. The value of historical connection in naming territory was appreciated by the ancients, no less than by the moderns. In designating the country “Palestine,” they deliberately linked the land to the Philistines, who had once lived largely along part of the coast and in some inland sections. The Romans thereby punished the Jews for challenging their authority and attempted to eradicate the country’s living Jewish heritage. Perhaps Greek, rather than indigenous Semitic, origins, would sever the identity of the country from its long-established Jewish inhabitants, who had lived, with only several interruptions, as an independent polity for well over a thousand years and had roots going on two millennia, from the time Abraham was believed to have made his Covenant with his Lord.

Thus, in placing “Eretz Israel” before the...

pdf

Share