letter continued…

Do you think that you can break us now after all we have been through? Do
you really believe that after Dachau and Auschwitz we are frightened by your threats of blockades and sanctions? We have been to Hell and back- a Hell of your making. What more could you possibly have in your arsenal that could scare us?

I have watched this city bombarded twice by nations calling themselves
civilized. In 1948, while you looked on apathetically, I saw women and
children blown to smithereens, after we agreed to your request to
internationalize the city. It was a deadly combination that did the job-
British officers, Arab gunners, and American-made cannon. And then the
savage sacking of the Old City-the willful slaughter, the wanton destruction
of every synagogue and religious school, the desecration of Jewish
cemeteries, the sale by a ghoulish government of tombstones for building
materials, for poultry runs, army camps, even latrines.

And you never said a word.

You never breathed the slightest protest when the Jordanians shut off the
holiest of our places, the Western Wall, in violation of the pledges they
had made after the war- a war they waged, incidentally, against the decision of the UN. Not a murmur came from you whenever the legionnaires in their spiked helmets casually opened fire upon our citizens from behind the walls.

Your hearts bled when Berlin came under siege. You rushed your airlift “to
save the gallant Berliners”. But you did not send one ounce of food when
Jews starved in besieged Jerusalem. You thundered against the wall which the East Germans ran through the middle of the German capital- but not one peep out of you about that other wall, the one that tore through the heart of Jerusalem.

And when that same thing happened 20 years later, and the Arabs unleashed a savage, unprovoked bombardment of the Holy City again, did any of you do anything?

The only time you came to life was when the city was at last reunited.
Then you wrung your hands and spoke loftily of “justice” and need for the
“Christian” quality of turning the other cheek.

The truth- and you know it deep inside your gut - you would prefer the city
to be destroyed rather than have it governed by Jews. No matter how
diplomatically you phrase it, the age old prejudices seep out of every word.

If our return to the city has tied your theology in knots, perhaps you had
better reexamine your catechisms. After what we have been through, we are not passively going to accommodate ourselves to the twisted idea that we are to suffer eternal homelessness until we accept your savior.

For the first time since the year 70, there is now complete religious
freedom for all in Jerusalem. For the first time since the Romans put a
torch to the Temple, everyone has equal rights (You prefer to have some more equal than others.) We loathe the sword- but it was you who forced us to take it up. We crave peace, but we are not going back to the peace of 1948 as you would like us to.

We are home. It has a lovely sound for a nation you have willed to wander
over the face of the globe. We are not leaving. We are redeeming the pledge made by our forefathers: Jerusalem is being rebuilt. “Next year” and the year after, and after, and after, until the end of time- “in Jerusalem”!