The war against those who seek our souls is being waged on the battlefield, in the political arena, and also on the propaganda level. On the military front, by God's grace, we are winning great victories, but in the propaganda field, we still have much work to do. And it is not just a matter of proper organization and allocation of resources, but above all of choosing the right arguments.
Our enemies repeat over and over the blatant lie that they have been the people of the land for thousands of years, while the Jews are foreigners and occupiers. Why is it important for them to repeat this lie over and over again? Because they understand that they must establish a sense of justice. If this land is not theirs, the other arguments will lose their weight.
The winning argument
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In contrast, we have almost completely abandoned the argument of justice and right, and instead talk about security needs. When the security argument becomes the only component in explaining our position to the world, it is doomed to failure.
One side brandishes a value argument, clings to its right to the land, cries out that its land has been stolen from it, and sounds very convincing. The other side entrenches itself behind security reasons, and is therefore much less convincing. At most, they will offer solutions to security questions, but they will strive to give the other side what seems right and just.
We must base our explanation on arguments of truth and justice, from which our right to this land stems. On Shabbat, when we read the Torah, Genesis, it is worth examining the words of Rashi, in his first commentary on the Torah. Rashi poses a question about the very fact that the Torah opens with the story of creation. Isn't the Torah a book of laws, and supposedly it should have opened with the first commandment given to Israel? The answer is amazing: the story of creation was intended to establish our right to the Land of Israel!
And so Rashi writes in the name of Rabbi Yitzchak: "If the nations of the world say to Israel - you are robbers, who have conquered the lands of seven nations, they will say to them - the whole earth is the Holy One of God; He created it and gave it to whomever is right in His eyes. At His will - He gave it to them, and at His will - He took it from them and gave it to us." In other words, through the story of creation, the Torah equips us with a victorious answer to the Gentiles' claim about the 'conquest' and our being 'robbies', as it were.
To speak the truth
First and foremost, we must declare with the greatest determination that this is our land. This is the inheritance that the Creator of the world gave to his people. Every Gentile who has read the Bible translated into his language knows this truth, but we need to speak it out loud.
Not only did we not conquer a land that belonged to others, but the opposite is true – it was the Arabs who gathered here from all the surrounding area and conquered our land and the inheritance of our ancestors. They built mosques on the places sacred to us. They persecuted and persecuted the Jews who lived in the land. They are the conquerors, they are the foreigners, while we are the owners of the Holy Land, which even the Gentiles call the 'Holy Land.'.
From this stems our incomparable right to the Land of Israel. When Jews live in Jerusalem and Beersheba, in Haifa and Hebron, in Alon Moreh and Safed, in Shiloh and Sderot, this is the most right and just thing – the Jewish people have returned to their home, to their land and their inheritance. This truth must be proclaimed again and again, with determination and confidence, and it will prevail!
