Menachem Beigin reasserted his view that Israel must retain the territory it now holds and warned that any move to withdraw could lead to the devastation of the Jewish State. In a politically subdued, but forceful presentation, the Gahal leader and Knesset member told 500 persons attending the Israel Bond Organization dinner here that if Israel withdraws, her enemies could converge on the small strip of land remaining and, within minutes, be able to reach the major cities in a pincer movement.
“Should we always be on the brink of disaster and then with the last vestige of strength extricate ourselves?” he asked. “Do we have the moral right to ask our children to face such danger? More, does any nation have the moral right to ask us to do this?” The Israel Bond dinner Thursday night marked the launching of their New York fall campaign and Israel’s 25th anniversary. More than $5,657,000 in Israel bonds was sold at the dinner.
Beigin observed that the boundaries of a number of nations changed when peace treaties were signed after World War I and II. These boundaries, codified by international law. have not been called into question, he said. “No more shall Jews be exceptions to international law,” Beigin declared. “The rules applying to war and peace shall also apply to Israel and the Jewish people. Aggressors must never get away with the spoils of their crimes.”
NEVER AGAIN BE FEARFUL
In a moderately soft attack on the Soviet Union, Beigin said that it was arming Palestinian terrorists with Katyusha rockets, “the same Katyusha rockets that had been a proud weapon used by the Russians in their heroic defense of Stalingrad.” Referring to the terrorists, he branded their methods as the “barbarization of fighting.” Beigin noted that previous forms of combatting oppressors, notably the underground activities in Europe against Nazism, avoided the killing of innocent civilians. “When the cause is just,” he said, “civilian casualties are avoided. If genocide is the aim, then the method is the murder of civilians.”
Focusing briefly on the plight of Soviet Jewry, Beigin said that 55 years after the Bolshevik revolution, people who have been mis-educated or not-educated at all in their Jewish heritage “come back to us with the full love for the Jewish people.” Referring to the ransom imposed upon educated Jews who seek to emigrate, Beigin said to a round of laughter and applause, “Has capitalism returned to Communist Russia?” Beigin, the leader of the Irgun under Mandated Palestine, concluded by declaring, “The Jews will never be fearful again.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
