A common theme in the Arab world as expressed by both the commentators and students the New York Times contacted following US President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo is that Israel is a creation foreign to the Middle-East created in response to the persecution of European Jews which culminated in the Holocaust. Since Israel is a foreign presence the Palestinians are paying for European sins, Israel should be uprooted and placed in say, Germany. In his speech President Obama mistakenly reinforced this belief by only mentioning the suffering of Jews in Europe as a reason for a Jewish homeland and not the even more important reason; Israel should be a Jewish homeland because it has been for thousands of years.
The Anti-Defamation League notes this and calls the speech a “A Missed Opportunity on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.” In a press release they state:
He said, speaking of America's ties to Israel, that it is based on the "recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied." He then went on to talk about anti-Semitism in Europe for centuries which "culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust."
It is good that the President addressed these themes but it sends the wrong message to base Israel's legitimacy simply or essentially on this suffering. The Arab world for decades has argued that Israel was an illegitimate entity imposed on the Arab Middle East by the Europeans who, they claimed, were trying to atone for the murder of six million Jews on European soil. The Arabs argued, Why should they pay the price for what the Europeans did to the Jews.
It is a phony argument which is not sustainable because the Jewish claim to Israel doesn't rest on the Holocaust, even if that tragedy played a role in the climate surrounding discussions about the idea of a Jewish state. Israel's legitimacy rests on the unbroken connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, a physical connection, a religious connection, a cultural connection, an existential connection. It is hardly too much to say that the Jewish people would not exist today as a people had we not held hope alive for 2,000 years about the return to Zion. In other words, there was Herzl before there was the Holocaust.
It is no accident that when the Zionist movement early in the 20th century was considering other options for a Jewish home, all were rejected because Israel was the true Jewish home and only a movement aspiring to build a modern Jewish state in the Holy Land could gain the support of the Jewish people and could be sustained through an uphill struggle.
I have always believed that the creation of Israel is the preeminent political act of the twentieth century. However the righteousness of this act depended on it occurring in the Land of Israel, in the homeland of the Jewish people. Israel was not chosen from a map, but from history.
President Obama needs to clarify and expand his remarks in light of this regrettable omission.