Word: eretz
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When his American hosts argued that Israel should adopt a more flexible attitude, Dayan replied that the U.S. must accept the fact that Begin is too committed to the concept of "Eretz Israel" for him ever to accept withdrawal from the West Bank. Nonetheless, said one American diplomat, "Dayan the pragmatist emerged. He told us, in effect, 'Let's not get hung up on 242 or on formulas, let's worry about what happens next.' " American officials took some encouragement from one Dayan admission: Israel now recognizes that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat cannot be expected...
...Premier is respected and admired at home, especially among lowincome, less-educated groups of Middle Eastern origin, for his mystical devotion to Eretz Israel (the land of Israel, including the biblical provinces of Samaria and Judea, which is how Begin refers to the West Bank). At the same time, many Israelis doubt his capacity to lead his country to peace because they fear he is too rigid, too suspicious of the Arabs, whom he barely knows, and too traumatized by Jewish history. His harshest critics call him a Yehudi Galuti, a Diaspora Jew, and it is true that...
During those years, Jewish life was punctuated by the creeds based on, or taken from, the Bible, the creation of our ancestors when they were living on their own land, in Eretz-Israel. Eventually all those prayers and yearnings took the form of Zionism, a national liberation movement, and Jews began to come home and rebuild the country...
Responding in Hebrew, Begin reminded his visitor of the long history of suffering and exile of the Jewish people, who "never for a day" had forgotten that Eretz Israel was their homeland. The Premier, who referred only sporadically to his written speech, provided the only surprise of the day. He declared that "our country is open to all the citizens of Egypt without any condition, and may the visitors be many." In return, Begin said, he hoped to visit Cairo too, and he issued a call to Syria, Jordan and Lebanon "to come and talk...
...compromise on another issue raised by Vance: the Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. The Foreign Minister rejected the American judgment that these settlements are obstacles to a peace agreement. Said he: "For us it is a matter of principle, of Jews being allowed to live anywhere in Eretz [Land of] Israel." Dayan added that his government would try not to be "provocative" about the settlements and insisted that Premier Menachem Begin was merely carrying out a policy created by previous Labor governments...