The Rebbe on 'Peace Now'. Part 2.

‘The wicked will have no peace, says G-d’ [Isaiah 49.17] – they offer no peace [agreements]. The intention of the Arabs terrorists are well known, as they ascertained at their recent gathering, that all the Jewish people to leave the land of Israel. This is no secret – they have said this openly and has been published everywhere, and this is known to all. This is nothing new; it is now 32 years that they have been announcing this! So it is self understood that any agreement with them will not bring to peace. Even should one agree to give in to their demands on condition that they sign a piece of paper that they are making peace for a while, as is the wish of Peace Now, not only will this not help, but this will bring actual danger onto the Jewish people. We saw this in actuality at the time of the Six Day War; there were Jews who said that they do not want to conquer the Old City of Jerusalem. Thereafter, when there was no choice but to conquer the Old City and the rest of the territories, the government of Israel immediately sent messengers to Washington to London and to Paris to make it known that their intention is to return everything. The only reason why they did in fact not return these was because gentiles have no real freedom of choice - ‘the heart of kings and princes is in the hands of G-d’, and G-d did not permit them to take these! But the Arabs knew that they had sent this delegation [to surrender more land] and this gave them the fortitude to continue their acts of terror until this very day, becoming progressively more aggressive, May G-d protect us! It is not as those who are mistaken think that terror is only a recent phenomenon – this is absolutely untrue. Terror continues month by month from the time of the Six Day War, from when the Arabs were encouraged when they became aware that the Jews are afraid of them, and therefore are sending emissaries to give in! This is how it spins forward; whenever Jews conquered some land from the Arabs, - they offer the gentiles to surrender that which was conquered, stating that they want peace, justice and integrity. Each of these occasions gives further fortitude and strength to the Arabs, to the point that they killed a Jew, a yeshiva boy, in the centre of Hebron!Peace Now brings actual danger onto the Jewish people and onto the Land, and yet, they continue forward demanding lands be given to the Arabs in return for that piece of paper which states that we are making peace. It is not enough for them the lands which were already surrendered with the oil wells, which weakened security. They do all this arguing that in return we will receive peace NOW. And since the Jews are a wise nation they argue, they will certainly be able to sort things out without oil and without land security. This is the greatest delusion that in return for surrender we will get peace – we see openly what Arab intentions are! Even if we were to say [in reality this is not the situation] that in return we are in receipt of a temporary real peace, as Peace Now argue, it is well known that when we are discussing a matter which is ongoing, one does not focus on the present, but how this goes into the future, into which direction this will move. If the present is not good but is moving to the good, one takes this into consideration. In the same way, if the present situation is good, one but is deteriorating, one takes this into consideration. Our situation is the same: we see where the surrender to the Arabs is leading. Even if one were to delude ones-self that at present there is peace now, this makes no difference, because we see that we are moving further into a negative situation, since their intention is not one of peace, but to eradicate the Jewish people from the land of Israel.

[From the farbrengen of Shabbos Parshas Shelach, 1980]