In 1972 I had a flourishing lawyer?s office in Tel Aviv, and yet I left for a Jewish suburb of Hebron that was, at the time, in process of being built. To where did I go? The media would say: To the ?West Bank? or into the ?Occupied Territories?, but Christians who know their own Bible would know, for example from Matthew (2:1), that Hebron, like Bethlehem, is in ?Judea?. In fact, Hebron, the old capital of Judea, is the cradle of the Jewish nation. My family went there to make sure that it would remain ?Judea?. The name for our new suburb we also found in the Bible: ?And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old... and Sarah died in Kiryat-Arba, the same is Hebron?? (Genesis, 23,1-2) A short time ago, two Israeli Jews were shot dead by Arab terrorists. They lived in the Biblical Tekoa which is also situated in Judea. They came from Russia. I came from Germany. Jews from all the world keep coming. ?Zionism? means the return into the biblical land, from which we were exiled 1932 years ago. It is the Bible that made us remember and never forget this land. To be spiritually conditioned by the Bible, one need not necessarily be classified as ?religious? or ?orthodox?. Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, was a so-called ?secular? Jew. So were most of the first pioneers. Yet all of them were moved by the Bible in the same way, for the simple reason that in Judaism nationality and religion are one and the fountainhead for both is the Bible. So what is there in the Bible, which wrote into our genetic code the urge ?to return?? Hewn into a rock in the newly built Tekoa are the words of the prophet Amos, ?who was among the shepherds of Tekoa?: ??and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them? and I will plant them upon their land and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them?? (Amos 9, 14-5) On the highway leading from Jerusalem to Tekoa, Rachel?s tomb is a reminder of Jeremia?s words: ??a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not. Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded .. and they shall come again from the land of the enemy . And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their border.? (Jeremiah 31, 15-17) Then, there are the words of Isaiah, not only an everyday experience for us, but also something we help create with our own hands: ?But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me? Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: All these gather themselves together, and come to thee? For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants? Then shalt thou say in thine heart, who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and I am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? And who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?? (Isaiah 49, 18-21) At Massada, the last Jewish fortress in the first ?Jewish War? against the Romans, a short time after the Holocaust archeologists found one single fragment of a parchment, with part of Ezekiel 37 written on it, just the passage where ?the hand of the Lord? set him down ?in the midst of the valley which was full of bones... and the breath came into them, and they lived? the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, our bones are dried, and our hope is lost, we are cut off for our parts? Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the Land of Israel?? Has not this happened and does it not happen day by day? The people of Israel are returning to Judea and the ?desolate land of destruction? is being built anew. Both these phenomena are unheard of, are without par in world history: The return of a nation after almost 2000 years and also the fact that this occurrence has been precisely foreseen 2600 years ago. Non-believers may explain this away, with some effort, as mere coincidence. Yet, is it conceivable that bible-believing people should now demand from us, according to the ?Mitchell Plan?, to destroy once more the rebuilt towns and villages, to transform Judea into an Arab ?Falastin? , to give the lie to the words of the Bible? ---------------------------------- Elyakim Haetzni, attorney, columnist and former member of the Knesset, has a weekly radio spot on Arutz Sheva .
