In the course of criticizing the Obama speech in Cairo, Father Khalil Samir SJ, a Vatican Islamologist quoted frequently and favorably on this blog, threw a bomb in Israel’s direction:
Another ambiguous element [in the Obama Cairo speech] concerns his placing on the same scale the legitimate desire of Palestinians and Jews to have a homeland in the Middle East. The legitimate desire of Jews in Europe was to live in peace where they were, not to have a homeland in the Middle East at all costs. This ambiguity is present in many in the West. But it also has to be said that now, Israel is in the Middle East and that we must live together, what remains important is that history is not manipulated.
This is a profoundly wrong and offensive formulation, the sort of thing one would have thought fell by the wayside decades ago. Criticism of Israel aside, it is an attack on the Jewish religion to allege that the desire of Jews for a homeland in Eretz Yisrael is not legitimate. A good deal of our ancient liturgy, recited thrice daily for the past two thousand years, is premised on precisely this desire for a homeland in Eretz Yisrael. It states:
And Jerusalem, Your city, return in mercy, and dwell therein as You have spoken; rebuild it soon in our days as an everlasting building, and speedily set up therein the throne of David. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who rebuilds Jerusalem.
And:
And let our eyes behold Your return in mercy to Zion. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who restores Your divine presence to Zion.
Our desire for a homeland is embedded in our daily prayers; if this desire is not legitimate, than neither is our liturgy, nor Judaism as a religion. As a matter of fact, we have maintained a continuous presence in Israel, including periods when it was quite dangerous for Jews to live in that region, precisely because it was a sacred obligation. Every synagogue in Eastern Europe had a collection box to support the communities of Jews in Eretz Yisrael. Jerusalem was a majority-Jewish city no later than 1846.
The Jewish homeland in Eretz Yisrael was affirmed by the League of Nations confirming the Balfour Declaration as a matter of international law in 1922 and established by the United Nations partition agreement in 1947. One can argue about that or that feature of the Jewish homeland, but its legitimacy under law is in question nowhere.
But that is not what Fr. Khalil writes: he claims that even the desire for homeland, not to mention the homeland itself, was illegitimate. Pope Benedict cannot possibly agree with this; his clearly-stated belief in the Biblical election of Israel includes the Jewish desire to live in Eretz Yisrael as God commanded us. It is very unfortunate when formulations like this creep in to the discussion. They open the door to some real misunderstandings.
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