"On the Iron Wall" is a position article written by my grandfather, which was first published in Berlin in the Russian-language Zionist newspaper Razsveit on November 4, 1923.
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The basic premise of the article: "The expulsion of the Arabs from the Land of Israel in any form is considered absolutely impossible; In the Land of Israel there will always be two peoples." My grandfather goes on to state: "There is nothing to talk about voluntary acceptance between the Arabs of the Land of Israel and us, not now, and not within the borders of the foreseeable future."
Israel's victory in the War of Independence made it clear to the Arabs that infrastructure for the Iron Wall had been built here. The victory in the Six-Day War finally established the Iron Wall, and even the results of the Yom Kippur War made it clear that the Iron Wall was still standing, despite the very difficult test.
Indeed, the proof of the accuracy of the article was that many of Israel's Arab citizens went from hostility to the state in 1948 to a state of gradual integration into its institutions, with a desire for full civil integration.
Then came the Oslo Accords, which did not ignite a glimmer of hope that they could get rid of us – but a huge torch. Therefore, the process of wanting to integrate began to recede, especially among the younger generation. In the language of the Middle East, bringing Yasser Arafat's head here attached to his body testified to Arafat's victory. The fact that he was received here with royal honors by the heads of state was proof of that.
The signing ceremony of the Oslo I Accords at the White House, photo: Gideon Markowitz
The move opened a huge crack in the iron wall, and the lack of an appropriate response to the attacks (like the response we now need) widened the crack more and more. The IDF's flight from Lebanon, and finally the folly of the disengagement and the expulsion of thousands of Jews from their homes, made our enemies realize that we were eager to deceive ourselves as to their desire for peace rather than our destruction, and they took full advantage of it. It will be out of the bag, to our dismay, on October 7, 2023 – almost 100 years after the article was written.
An existential risk that requires the death penalty
We have no choice but to plug all the loopholes in the iron wall by dealing thoroughly and completely with our enemies, the nature of which we stood on that accursed Shabbat, in the spirit of the last verse of Shir Beitar. This means a fundamental change in worldviews that have collapsed:
• Understanding that the dream of two states here endangers us existentially.
• Applying the death penalty to anyone who belongs to an organization whose declared goal, in its charter and in the education of its younger generation, is the destruction of the State of Israel and the massacre of its citizens and soldiers. This includes retroactive punishment for those who have done so in the past, and without statute of limitations. Not just Hamas.
• Lack of tolerance and lack of leniency in the punishment of inciters to expel Jews and joy at the success in killing Jews among Israeli citizens.
If we go back to normal, we will miss the extent of the damage that was caused and that will still be caused to us by the attack on the terrible bloody Saturday. If we want life, we must uphold the last paragraph of the article: "For us, the only way to reach an agreement in the future is to completely renounce all attempts to reach an agreement in the present."
The writer is the grandson of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the author of the article "The Iron Wall"
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