HERBERT ZWEIBON

This issue of Outpost pays tribute to Shmuel Katz, the last great Zionist of Israel’s founding generation, who died on May 9 at 93. Like no one since Zeev Jabotinsky (for whom he acted for a time as secretary), Katz served the Jewish people with selfless political integrity, indifferent to personal advantage. Americans for a Safe Israel is especially in his debt for he inspired its founding thirty-seven years ago.

For me, meeting Shmuel Katz was a life-transforming experience. I had been active in my synagogue, a buyer of Israel Bonds, typical of the vast majority of Jews who supported Israel and were comfortable in their confidence that Israel’s government knew and did what was best for the country’s future. Katz made me recognize that this was not the case, that the (then) Labor government was profoundly wrong in looking upon the territories Israel had taken in the Six Day War as bargaining chips for “peace” and that United States policy, wedded to the same false idea, had to be challenged.

And so my life has been immeasurably enriched, as I have taken my part, at Shmuel’s side, in seeking to bring to pass what Israel Eldad called The Jewish Revolution, “the salvation of the Jewish people in its homeland.” It has been a great adventure, bringing me in contact with a range of people I would never have dreamed I would come to know – from the true heroes of Israel, the much maligned “settlers,” particularly those dedicated people living in places like Hebron, to Knesset members; from U.S. Congressmen to evangelical Christian leaders. Above all I have been privileged to meet AFSI members from every walk of life who believe that the Land of Israel is the birthright of the Jewish people.

Succeed or fail, this has been an enormously satisfying and important enterprise. The high hopes we once shared with Shmuel and the Land of Israel Movement, of which he was a member, have been frustrated. That Movement arose following the Six Day War of 1967 to emphasize that Israel could be a geopolitical factor in the region, with the historic heartland of Judea and Samaria restored to the Jewish people, strategic depth and oil from the Sinai, the high ground on the Golan Heights a deterrent to Syria – and that unless Israel was such a regional power, it would be in mortal danger. Especially since the 1993 Oslo agreement, we have been appalled as successive blind and feckless governments, with the United States as determined cheerleader, have pursued the chimera of a New Middle East.

Katz never changed his principles and never lost his unerring ability to analyze events. When he was only 22, Jabotinsky said of his articles: “I must very earnestly congratulate you on the perfect clarity, the forcible simplicity, the sachlichkeit [matter of fact, to the point] with which you present the most complicated situations.” This was as true of Katz at 93 as at 22, as his essays continued to lay out, with the same perfect clarity, the situation confronting Israel, the consequences of the actions her leaders were taking and the alternative policies they should pursue. We present in this Outpost an example of his recent columns as well as brief excerpts from two of his books.

Like prophets generally, Katz has been sidelined, dismissed, ignored by those who most needed to listen. I, personally, am proud to have been a disciple. While AFSI may not have grown to the size and had the impact on policy Katz would have liked, I know he was satisfied that we have kept our message and our focus: a strong Israel, in defensible borders that include its historic heartland of Judea and Samaria, is vital for the preservation of the state, the welfare of Jews throughout the world, and for United States interests in the region, deeply threatened by the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism.