Yet all know that we will do nothing of the kind. Our leaders console themselves with the thought that we have the firepower to wipe out thousands of Palestinians in short order if we so chose. Yes, but we won't. All the talk about what we could do provokes only mirthful contempt today. We are being shown the limits of our power for our own good.
Ancient texts provide more clues to the sources of our present travails.
Both understand that the argument hinges on which of them is willing to sacrifice more for that patrimony. Yishmael cites his willingness to be circumscribed at the age of thirteen, and Isaac counters that he would be willing to give his very life to God. After seven years of the Oslo process, we feel less secure about our future in this Land than at any time since 1948. It is no accident, the Midrash suggests to us, that Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, chief architect of that process, sees no intrinsic value in the Land and writes that the Zionist Congress of 1905 erred in rejecting the offer of Uganda for a Jewish homeland. Or that he once told an interviewer that he would have nothing to say to one of his children who asked why he or she should not intermarry.