Discussions around the legitimacy of Israel are often similar: “the Jews came in 1948 to a land that did not belong to them, and, what is more, already inhabited”; “certainly, but Jewish settlement took place in the 19th century, on hostile and legally purchased land; and then, this land was promised and given to Abraham's posterity by God himself. It is to be feared that this argument has little impact in these times: for agnostics or atheists, who are legion in Western countries, it is a mark of obscurantism, or of vain religiosity more or less marked by intolerance.
For followers of Islam, Abraham is part of the Muslim tradition, Jerusalem the third holy city, and the kotel a high place, marked by the coming of the Prophet who hung his horse there, Al Bouraq¹. The religious argument therefore quickly finds its limits of persuasion, since to support it we base ourselves exclusively on a Jewish text, the Torah. However, it can be greatly strengthened if we take a political or even geopolitical point of view, a notion familiar to our societies, by relying on extra-biblical texts. We will use some epigraphic documents, the best known and studied, which today find a broad consensus among specialists.
The date of the exit from Egypt is not attested with certainty, in particular because of the absence of this event in Egyptian sources. However, a group, social rather than ethnic, is often cited in Egyptian documents, the Apiru. This is a population practicing brigandage, feared by the Pharaoh, and whose analogy with the future Hebrews is plausible and hotly debated². An essential document will detain us for longer: the stele engraved during the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah, dated from the last years of the 13th century, glorifying him after his conquests in the region; thus it is said that “Canaan is stripped of all his evil; Ashqelon is deported (…); Israel is destroyed and has no more seed.” For the first time, at a date which corroborates the hypothesis of an exodus under the reign of Ramesses II, mention is made of an ethnic entity settled in the north of the country of Canaan and called Israel.
The golden age of Judaism was most certainly located around the 10th century BC, the time of the unified kingdom of Israel, under the rule of two charismatic kings, David and Solomon, supported by the authority of the prophet Samuel, inspired by the divine. These episodes left great biblical pages, sometimes confirmed by archaeology. On the one hand, the weakening of the great regional empires, Egypt, Babylon, left a military and political vacuum which served the interests of small royalty. On the other hand, if the epic of David has left us few vestiges, the peaceful reign of the builder Solomon left his name to an architectural style.
There is indeed a debate around the extent of the kingdom's borders, the leader of which today is the archaeologist I. Finkelstein. But this hotly debated question does not concern us directly³. It suffices to point out that from around the 11th century the Hebrews acquired sovereignty over the land of Israel. This concept is far from hollow; it means the existence of a homogeneous population, with a common past and plans for the future, a territory with more or less well-defined borders, and a government with a monopoly on legitimate violence.
Another inscription, called Mésha, sheds light on more recent episodes, during the division of the kingdom. The king of Moab, neighbor and enemy of Israel, reports events which took place between 852 and 842, notably under the dynasty of Omri, king of Israel. He, we are told, had conquered part of the territory of Moab. Even more interesting is the mention of the god of Israel, who fights for his people, like Kamosh, the god of the Moabites. Thus a national divinity is affirmed in the service of a State which appears well organized. There already exists a powerful link between the territory, the nation, and its divinity.
A troubled period will begin a few decades later, which will see the destruction of the northern kingdom, then, in 586, the fall of Jerusalem. The Jews regained political and military autonomy under the Hasmoneans (mid-2nd century), before Rome definitively put an end to the national dream, despite a final attempt at an uprising behind Bar Kochba, in 132-135.
What conclusions can we draw from this political history, which will serve as arguments?
- Beyond the faith which projects us towards a messianic future, in addition to a religious belief in an unconditional and timeless promise linked to the land of Israel, there existed in a concrete way a sovereign State, a nation such as we can still define it (land; people; government).
- The depopulation of the country was not voluntary⁴, but was the consequence of a policy of deportation carried out in a classic and extensive manner by the conquering empires, Assyrian, Babylonian or Roman, in order to avoid any other population uprising.
- No other people came to settle en masse in this region which offered little attraction for permanent residents.
- There was an entity called Israel already in the 13th century BC. our era, which gradually developed cultural characteristics little modified through the ages. This element is crucial, this human group has kept throughout History the characteristic features of a people: the recognition of a common past, a cultural and religious heritage, a language which connects its members, and the feeling of a common destiny.
- If the Jews no longer claimed political autonomy until Zionism, it was because they did not have the means, on the one hand, and their progressive dispersion did not allow them such initiatives; however, there was a constant Jewish presence, thin at some times, prosperous and flourishing at others (the period of the arrival of the Kabbalists in Safed).
- The national demand took shape when the idea of emancipation of peoples took hold.
- It is therefore indeed a political and national link which doubled the emotional link to the land, and it was a weighty argument at a time when a large number of peoples were obtaining free self-determination.
It was obviously not a question of claiming to return to the exact borders of ancient Israel, taking no account of the new geopolitical data. This is indeed the meaning of the UN resolution of 1947. Thus we can conclude that the creation of Israel does not result only from the unfortunate fate of the Jewish people, but also from an element of international law, from a legal return to a land once sovereignly occupied by the same people: there is no prescription in this matter.
Editor's note: This article is from the newspaper's archives Altalena and was originally published in May 2004. It is reproduced here as part of the conservation and enhancement of the historical archives of the publication.