Peres warns settlements threaten the ‘future of a Jewish state’
Settler council head Danny Dayan says the danger is forgetting ‘our historic connection to the land’
Aaron Kalman is a former writer and breaking news editor for the Times of Israel
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are a danger to Israel and threaten its long-term status as a center of Jewish life, President Shimon Peres said Tuesday evening. Danny Dayan, head of the Yesha (settlers) council, responded that Israel would stop being Jewish when people gave up their ancestral homeland.
Speaking at an annual ceremony in memory of Theodor Herzl, Peres warned that Jews who settle in heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank could lead Israel to a situation in which “it’s doubtful [the country] would remain Jewish.”
Such actions, the president said, would have “grave” demographic import.
It’s questionable whether a country without a Jewish majority “could remain Jewish,” Peres explained.
Peres said that in a democratic world one needed a national majority to maintain a nation state, and added that in a world of many cultures, it was important “to safeguard the Jewish people’s unique spirit.”
When Herzl said “If you will it, it is no dream,” he didn’t mean one should give up the dream, the president said. “With no vision there cannot be a Jewish state,” he added, noting that Jews could not fulfill historic Judaism without a historic vision.
“Herzl offered his nation a vision. His vision was for the long term,” Peres continued. A Jewish state must be a safe place for the Jewish people over time, he said, “and the center of the nation’s spiritual life.”
On Wednesday morning Danny Dayan, head of the Yesha (settlers) council, told Army Radio that Peres was “politicizing” the presidential institution and warned against Israel losing its Jewish values.
Historian Simon Dubnow called Herzl crazy and the Jewish state a hallucination, and predicted that “there would be no more than half a million Jews in Israel” in the year 2000, Dayan noted.
A Jewish state is not based on a head count, but rather on the ideals and values we live by, he said. How can we remain a Jewish state if we choose to “give away Hebron, Shilo and Bet El,” he asked. Without remembering our nations past and our historic connection to the land we will cease from being a Jewish country, Dayan warned.
On Sunday, a panel headed by retired Supreme Court justice Edmund Levy issued a report recommending the legalization of most of the unauthorized Jewish outposts in the West Bank. The 89-page legal opinion was written at the behest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The report concludes that the establishment of settlements in the West Bank does not breach international law, and that Jews can legally make their homes there. It states that “Israel does not meet the criteria of ‘military occupation’ as defined under international law” in the West Bank, and that the settlements and outposts are therefore legal. The report was immediately slammed by the political left, including by attorney Talia Sasson, who wrote a report reaching very different conclusions for prime minister Ariel Sharon.
Gabe Fisher contributed to this report.