The speech we expect our prime minister to deliver
Israel’s Government Position
A corollary of the inalienable right of the Jewish people to its Land is the right to live in any part of Eretz Yisrael, including Judea and Samaria which are an integral part of Eretz Yisrael. Jews are not foreigners anywhere in the Land of Israel. Anyone who asserts that it is illegal for a Jew to live in Judea and Samaria just because he is a Jew, is in fact advocating a concept that is disturbingly reminiscent of the “Judenrein” policies of Nazi Germany banning Jews from certain spheres of life for no other reason than that they were Jews. The Jewish villages in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District are there as of right and are there to stay.
The right of Jews to settle in the Land of Israel was also recognised in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine which stressed “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and… the grounds for reconstituting” – I repeat, reconstituting –“their national home in that country.”
The Mandatory Power was also entrusted with the duty to encourage “close settlement by Jews on the land, including state lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.”
Yehuda Z. Blum, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations. At the Louis D. Brandeis Award Dinner of the Zionist Organization of America.
(Washington D.C., 11 June 1979)
