From Jewish Terrorism by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

On December 18, 1946, in a closed meeting of the political committee of the Zionist Congress, Ben Gurion argued brilliantly against colleagues advocating terror. His words could not be more relevant today.

He began by saying, “One thing is prohibited under any circumstances: murder. Murder means spilling of innocent blood. Murder, No. I have to tell you that a soldier is a volunteer. I know what it means to be a soldier. The role of the soldier is to kill and be killed for a just cause….

“But there is something else that is called murder. And there is not one of us who may permit it, and we may not give anyone permission to permit it, especially when it is done in our name.”

He then delineated the practical meaning of the decision to fight terror: “We have to seriously think, not here and not in the Congressional assembly, because this means not only words and declarations . . . If Congress takes a stand against murder we will have to make sure that within our ranks there will no be one who would want to help with money, speech making or providing moral justification to murder in any shape or form… We are still based… on a moral principle. We may not undermine it.it…”

President Bush could not have said it better. Terror boomerangs regardless of the perpetrators, Ben Gurion warned. “The murder [that was done by the Arabs] in 1936 was first directed against the Jews… But eventually it became directed against the Arabs themselves.

“In the last period of the organized murder by the Mufti, 300 Jews were killed. According to our information — and we do not have all the information — 1,000 Arabs were killed by murderers sent by the Mufti. Do not say that this happened with the Arabs but will not happen with us.

“It must happen with us and it has already happened with us. With us it would be even worse than with them. In the case of the Arabs, the perpetrators were separate gangs organized by the Mufti. He had money and capabilities, but the Arab masses were helpless…

“With Jews, it would be entirely different. It would be worse,” he cautioned. He called on those who provide moral justification for terror to cease and desist: “Groups which gave their blessing — at least that is the way I understood their speeches in the Congress — to murderous propaganda, must clarify their stands in this question.

“I want to tell them: We are Jews. When somebody tries to play chess — he knows how to play chess, and when they try to confuse Jews with certain formulas — they understand the formulas… What is at stake here is the moral basis of our movement and the physical existence of the Yishuv [settlement].”

Ben Gurion insisted that eschewing responsibility by pretending not to see was not a viable option for practical as well as moral reasons. “We cannot tolerate the existence of organized groups wishing to conduct war in the name of the people in the manner, place and time of their choosing.

“That cannot be tolerated even without reference to the question of murder. That means that there must be strict national discipline. Discipline is not a popular or comfortable word, especially for Jews, because of positive instincts. Jews are free people who do not like boot camp type order.

“Our movement is one of the freest movements and it should stay so. However, when we go to war, there must be iron discipline even within the freest, most democratic and liberal nation,” he stated.

Ben Gurion believed that terror is self-destructive, especially to the youth engaged in it. “We may not permit within our ranks the demoralizing education of ‘only thus,’ only with the gun, as it undermines the foundation of our movement,” he asserted.

It is also wrong to underestimate the people’s ability to combine building with self-defense: “As to the question, raised in the Congress at the end of the political debate by one of our best men: “How can we combine these things?” I must answer that we were forced to combine them in reality… I went to plow with a rifle on my shoulder in Segera.”

Indeed, the alternative would result in the emergence of a generation which would lack the ability to handle peace: “Imagine: A miracle would happen tomorrow and we would receive a state on both sides of the Jordan, and all the earthly kings would ship Jews to the Land of Israel, and there will no longer be a basis for terror.

“I know that a few hundred or a few thousand Jewish boys and girls would be the most miserable. They have no other interest in life except to shoot people. They have not been educated for anything else. They will have no meaning to their lives. As this was all their purpose, dream, pathos and song.”

Isn’t this precisely what happened to Bin Laden and his men in Afganistan? Isn’t this what may happen to the Palestinians? “If you tell the youth, especially the Eastern one, that the only thing to do is to shoot, it could no longer do anything else.

It would be the worse exploitation of our brothers and sisters…who after 70 years of work in the land of Israel there are still poor neighborhoods to take their children, who do not have enough to eat, street children, and …make into murderous bands with the help of the theory ‘Only Thus!’ (with a gun.)