An open letter to Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice

An open letter to Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice

The Jewish Community of Hebron

November 06, 2007

The Honorable Dr. Condoleezza Rice

Secretary of State

United States Department of State

Washington, D.C. 20520 U.S.A.

Dear Secretary Rice,

We notice that recently you have been pledging much effort and time to the Middle East. We are sure that you are doing this on behalf of those who live in this region and that your efforts are meant to ordain a better future for the region and its inhabitants. We might appreciate these intentions if we did not know clearly that all your efforts and actions will cause the region and its residents much more suffering and bloodshed. Moreover, the goals that you have established are totally contrary to justice, the Bible, and the rights of the Jews in this country.

We wish to remind you, Dr. Rice, that in the Bible this land was promised to the Jewish people some 4,000 years ago. Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, purchased Hebron more than 3,800 years ago. The Jews left Egypt in order to go to their country, the Holy Land, the Land of Israel, 3,500 years ago. There they established a state 3,300 years ago. This state became the kingdom of the Jewish King David, 3,000 years ago. The Temple stood in the center of the country, Jerusalem, and after being destroyed by the Babylonians it was rebuilt some 2,000 years ago. In all of those generations, this land was the sole homeland of the Jewish people. Only the Jewish people gave it independence. Only they lent it a distinct identity.

Please bear in mind that by the time Arabs reached this country, it had belonged to the Jews for thousands of years. The Arabs destroyed the country and caused its inhabitants much suffering. They never established an independent state in this country and never contributed a thing to its development. Under Arab rule, most of the country was unpopulated and desolate, covered with marshes and deserts – as your countryman, the renowned Mark Twain, described in his unforgettable book The Innocents Abroad. The Holy Land remained abandoned, as if loyally waiting for its offspring to return. The Jewish people, too, remained true to its land for millennia and aspired to return to it. Jews began to return to the Land of Israel about 140 years ago and started to make it blossom, cultivate its soil, and build it. Then the Arabs woke up and embarked on acts of terror and murderous attacks. In 1929, lethal Arab terror brought on the destruction of the world’s most ancient Jewish community, that of Hebron. Arabs butchered seventy Jews, brutalized and raped dozens of women, and banished the survivors. The mastermind of pogroms against the Jews of the Land of Israel in the 1920s, the Arab leader Amin al-Husayni, the founder of Palestinian nationalism, went so far as to meet with Hitler during the Holocaust and to plan, in common cause, the annihilation of all Jews in the Land of Israel. He even established Muslim units in the Nazi army. These aspirations have been typical of the Palestinian leadership ever since.

Even if Arabs have personal human rights, they have never had any collective national rights in this country. This is clear to anyone who has average schooling. However, to secure national rights that they never had, the Arabs established terror organizations of which the PLO was the first. These organizations specialize in the murder of civilians – men, women, and children, mainly Jews and Israelis but also many others, including no few American citizens. From the moment Israel recognized the PLO and gave it land in certain parts of the country, these areas have become incubators of terrorism, suffering, and corruption. Not long ago it transpired that the PLO had become so corrupt and reviled an entity that the Arabs themselves gave rise to a much more murderous enemy, Hamas, which very easily seized power in the Gaza Strip by means of gruesome acts of terror. Your persistence in trying to hand further areas to the PLO will certainly inflict more terrorism, more suffering, and more bloodshed on the entire region and its inhabitants.

Moreover, you constantly ignore the rights of the Jews in this territory, their historical and sole country and homeland. The Jewish community has returned to Hebron and is revitalizing the Jewish quarter and the synagogues that the Arabs destroyed. We have full rights to these properties and buildings. Your policies are definitely leading to further destruction and killing. Is this how your country treats the property of Jewish communities on American soil?

You must be aware that Jews who remain in any territory that is handed over to the PLO will be easy prey for brutal murder – and a fortiori if the territory falls into the hands of Hamas, as is likely. How can you promote a policy that will deal the Jews so grievous a blow – in their homeland of all places, the historical Holy Land?

Your schemes plainly include the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews from their localities and homes. Therefore, we wish to inform you that we do not intend to leave our homes on any terms. You will have to use force against us in order to transfer the territory, free of Jews, to the murderers’ organizations – the PLO and Hamas. This is the direction in which you are leading the Middle East. Is this how the United States fights for justice and against Islamic terror?

We hope you receive these remarks and change the dangerous direction in which you are heading. Please remember: many generations after you conclude your term in office, we, the inhabitants of this region, will still be here and will have to endure the consequences of your policies. Only Israeli control from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River will confer rights upon all people in the region and maximize the peace and happiness of all inhabitants of the area.

Respectfully,
Noam Arnon

David Wilder

The Jewish Community of Hebron