How would we answer the claim of Arafat and the Palestinian Arabs, that the Jewish people have thrown them out of their homeland?
ANSWER:
How would you answer the claim of a man who at gunpoint drove you out of your house, and later when you come back to claim your house, he said "Look, I'm living here, it's my house now, you want to drive me out?"
We have a claim to Eretz Yisroel, and it's written, we have a charter. The Torah states openly it belongs to us, it was given to us, we lived there. The fact that we were driven out at gunpoint, at knife point, doesn't mean that we lost the rights to be here.
Now I am not saying that we are justified in taking over Eretz Yisroel, but we certainly are justified in saying that the land belongs to us. Whether we are going to do something about it or not, could be we shouldn't do anything about it, but whatever it is, there's not the slightest question that we lived there and we were driven out by force, the Romans drove us out. Therefore it's our land.
Should we now go by force and drive out the inhabitants? That's a question that I'm not going to discuss, could be not. Now Arafat was not driven out, he could live in Eretz Yisroel, nobody is stopping him. Who told him to run away because he's a mischief maker? Mischief makers will be apprehended, and may be punished, but that's no claim against the people who are willing to punish him. If he wouldn't be a mischief maker, he could live peacefully inEretz Yisroel.
Therefore there is no claim of Palestinian Arabs against the Jews.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
Important Numbers
