“They’re not fighting Jews, they’re fighting God. I don’t fight God.”

There is a genuine dearth of open statement regarding all that Israel has gone through since its inception of statehood sixty-six years ago. I want to share a letter-to-the-editor I wrote 15 ½ years ago, and since the letter explains itself there is no need for me to elaborate other than to make two comments.

The first comment is that how the reporter who is mentioned came to me I no longer remember, but he had his own biases and was continually attempting to provoke me into some kind of anti-Arab/Palestinian behavior and remarks. Thank God I’m a good number of light-years ahead of him.  He even ate a meal with us in our home, but he wouldn’t permit himself to see us ‘just as people’. He kept looking to find some way of portraying us as evil, or at least trying to find some kind of deviancy. So much for responsible journalism.

The second comment is that we unintentionally received an email sent to the staff by the editor, who was stunned by what I’d written and was going to publish my comments. Upon reading what I’ve written, it’ll be obvious why it was forbidden for him to do so.

Worth noting is that the word ‘hamas’ in Hebrew means: violence, oppression, cruelty, and it can be found in the Torah at the very beginning of the portion of Noach 6:11: “…and hamas filled the land.” It was Noach’s being on the positive, constructive, and building side of life that caused God to relent from his thoughts of doing away with creation. It’s Noach’s intentions in life which would lead to Abraham and the creating of Am Yisrael, the Jewish People.

Shabbat Shalom,
Daniel Eliezer


Dear Editor,

On the front page of the Sunday, January 3, edition of The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer appeared an article, “So close, yet so far apart”, written by your correspondent, Mr. Vindu Goel. In order to acquire information, Mr. Goel spent a day in Beit El as my guest. I, of course, was interviewed, and not only my responses but also my picture were included. Mr. Goel was kind enough to send me a copy of the newspaper. The following is my response to the article.

Thank you for sending me a copy of your article. Because I am intimately knowledgeable with the topic, I discovered how difficult it is for a foreign journalist to do his job. I suppose that it is the way of the world to want to hear only about conflict, so I must apologize to you that I deliberately avoided the topic. There are many positive aspects to Israel in general and settlements in particular that are never presented in the media. Contrarily, I think that there are many facets of the Palestinian society that remain taboo by your profession. Having spent significant amounts of time both working side by side with Arabs and also doing reserve duty in their villages, I have a strong sense of what they endure. Without pursuing this matter, two things are true. One, regardless of however much they have or have not suffered, how much they have gotten or not gotten, their seemingly insatiable appetite for wanton violence destroys any hope of reconciliation or peaceful coexistence.  Two, if, God forbid, the Jewish people were to disappear from the Land of Israel the “Palestinians” would disappear shortly thereafter. The Syrian, Iraqi, and Egyptian armies would meet in Jerusalem in about two weeks, and to the victor would go the spoils. There would not be a single person in the world who would give a damn about the ‘Palestinians’, especially the media. After all who’s going to write about a subject that doesn’t sell.

The only possible way to deny the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel is to deny our existence. The very same Bible that declares our existence equally sets forth and proves our sovereignty over the Land of Israel. For the non-scholars, during the course of our two thousand years of exile, no king, no people, no empire has ever succeeded in settling and making productive this land. Only upon our return has it again blossomed and flourished. Exile was not something that conquering armies brought upon us - it was the fulfillment of a divine decree. So, too, our return is the fulfillment of a divine promise. God brought us here for a purpose and it is within our abilities to achieve that purpose. If Jews will be Jews in the Land of Israel, the world will be a better place to live in for all of us. Our task is to make a world that God wants to dwell in, and if we can do that only in Israel it will be sufficient. That, alone, will usher in the messianic era, and there is no one but no one who is not longing for a better world.

There is a story told about the Six-Day War. An Israeli tank became disabled in an Arab village during fighting in the Suez. The commander was afraid to get out of the tank to repair it, fearing that he would be in mortal danger. After a short consideration, he realized that his incapacitated tank was not really that much safer so he jumped out to attempt repairs. Outside of the tank he was immediately joined by an Arab engineer who volunteered his services to help in the repairs. Astonished, the Israeli asked him, “Aren’t you the enemy?” Replied the Arab, “They’re not fighting Jews, they’re fighting God. I don’t fight God.” This holy person was so right. God’s desire is that we, all of us, make the world a peaceful (not piecemeal) place.

Sincerely yours,
30 January1999