RUTH KING

The first book I read when I found my Zionist home in Americans for a Safe Israel was “Battleground” written by Shmuel Katz, one of the founders of the organization. It was and remains the definitive text on the history and context of the Arab/Israel wars.

In 1977, shortly after the election of Menachem Begin, David Bar Illan, the late journalist and world class pianist, and his wife Beverly invited me to their home to meet Katz who had accompanied Begin as adviser on his first State visit to the United States. Thanks to the unequalled kindness, devotion to AFSI, and hospitality of Beverly Bar-Illan, Shmuel became a frequent and favored lodger there and I was to see him many times in the ensuing years.

I appreciated Shmuel’s association with Zeev Jabotinsky, the great prophet and Zionist who persuaded my parents to immigrate to Bolivia. Because of my father’s predilection for the legacy of Betar and the Irgun I was also very familiar with the struggle to liberate Palestine.

Shmuel was in many ways the natural heir to Jabotinsky as historian, essayist and political thinker, and selfless and principled Zionist. In some ways he surpassed Jabotinsky who had a rather rosy view of a future reconciliation between Jews and Arabs.

Katz understood the faith driven historic hatred of Islam for Jews and its unalterable determination to extirpate the Jewish state from their Middle East Caliphate. When I once remarked that I was pleasantly startled by seeing Sadat emerge from a plane and shake hands with all assembled Israelis, Shmuel exploded and explained that a “hudna”…Arabic for a temporary and strategic and non binding truce…was all that was achieved. He reminded me of the jihadist calls to war against Israel by so called secularists such as Assad and Nasser and the long and painful legacy of Arab/Moslem anti-Semitism.

He was enraged that Israelis and their American supporters did not denounce Sadat, an aggressor in the surprise attack on Israel in 1973, that he could issue demands to the Knesset, especially on Judea and Samaria which had absolutely no connection to Egypt. He warned that the word “autonomy” would lead to statehood.

He broke with Menachem Begin for accepting the outlines of the Camp David Accords and refused a plum appointment as Ambassador to the United Nations. These were acts of principle and determination unfamiliar in Israeli politics.

Although unbending in his lifelong dedication to the Land of Israel, Shmuel could also be lighthearted, cheerful and occasionally naïve. He liked Jimmy Carter when he first met him. He was dazzled by Ms. Lillian, the President’s mother who spoke movingly about Israel and the Holocaust. He was also taken by the President’s sister, the late Ruth Carpenter who had an Evangelical’s love for Zion.

He also liked the very ultra liberal Reform Rabbi Alexander Schindler who was President of the President’s Conference and squired Begin and Katz through Congress and the various Jewish organizations who were in shock that a right wing government had been elected in Israel. Shmuel appreciated Rabbi Schindler’s proper respect for the body politic of Israel and called those days the “Schindlerization” of the Herut Party.

Many years later when I teasingly reminded him of how much mischief Carter did and how many harmful edicts against Israel were promoted by Schindler, he told me to “close the book of grievances” as he called it, and concentrate on the present danger. He never did like to admit an error, and, in fact, there were so few errors made by this remarkable guardian of Israel.

In one of our last conversations conducted by phone after he became too feeble to travel, I asked how he kept himself busy after having completed his last book on Aharon Aahronsohn and the Nili group. He responded that he read, tried to write an occasional column, and read all the newspapers published in Israel, including the ultra-left Ha’aretz.

I was astonished that he read Ha’aretz which had become so inimical to Katz’s principles on a strong Israel. His response was that he skipped the political articles but that the paper often had interesting columns on unsung Jewish heroes and the roles they played in the history of Israel and the defense of Jews. He was right about that and I earnestly hope that in this the sixtieth anniversary of the State that Shmuel Katz fought for and defined, Ha’aretz will recognize and pay tribute to Shmuel Katz who was a great prophet and hero and defender of Zion.

I have never known anyone quite like Shmuel..... gadfly, scold, flirt, brilliant, determined, impatient, witty, charming and combative. Above all he was unflinching in his love for the Land of Israel.

When I spoke at a tribute to Shmuel, on his eightieth birthday, I remarked that he had a congenital abnormality of the knees because he could not bend or kneel or cringe. He was proud of his heritage and, when I spoke to him, always hopeful for the future.

His memory is a blessing.