Chabad's Sichos contain the following excerpt relating to Pikuach Nefesh in a state of War, and whether the 'Camp David' agreements can be considered 'saving lives' (you will see that the Rebbe did not consider the peace process to be viable):
http://www.sichosinenglish.org/essays/18.htmPikuach Nefesh is PreeminentThe critical issue here is pikuach nefesh, saving of life. The Torah tells us that pikuach nefesh assumes priority in almost every situation:[1] Shabbos is desecrated to save life, the laws of Kashrus are discarded to save a life, etc. Jews entered the Camp David peace process hoping it would lead to peace, and hence prevention of loss of life. Whether this goal is attained, however, is another matter.
No one can maintain that the ‘peace’ arrived at in Camp David is, or can be, assured. A treaty is only as good as the word of the man who signs it, and nothing on earth can guarantee its permanence. History is too full of instances where treaties were broken as casually as the tearing up of the paper on which they were written. In this case, there are several complications which further compound the uncertainty. No one can really be sure of Sadat’s intentions in signing the treaty. Did he really desire a lasting peace? Or was it just a way to obtain that which he could not gain through war? He could easily break off relations once everything is in Egypt’s possession. And even if Sadat was personally trustworthy, there is no guarantee that his successors will be. Moreover, Egypt is not a sound democracy. Who knows what upheaval will produce which type of leadership? Egypt is unstable, a fact demonstrated by Sadat’s assassination; and a new regime may not feel obligated to keep its predecessor’s commitments. We will have more to say about this later.
In short then, the peace is not an assured one, but merely a gamble for peace. Perhaps the peace will last -- but perhaps it will not. That is the idea of taking a chance.
Conversely, the concessions made by the Jewish people are not mere verbal or written pronouncements, but very substantial indeed. So much so, that these concessions may put Eretz Yisrael into greater danger than before -- as we shall shortly discuss. In other words, while the concessions were made to avoid danger to life, they result in the reverse: they themselves are a danger to the lives of the Jews in Eretz Yisrael. We have then the following dilemma before us: The peace process may avoid loss of life, but surrendering the lands constitutes a threat of life, G-d forbid. Both acts seemingly are for the purpose of pikuach nefesh. The crucial question is: which takes precedence?
What does the Halachah say?[2]
Torah is the Jew’s guide in all aspects of life, and we look to it for direction in all things. There is a halachah in Shulchan Aruch, the Jewish Code of Law, which gives a clear directive in just such a case as ours. In the Laws of Shabbos, Orach Chaim, Ch. 329. paragraph 6, it states:
"When non-Jews besiege Jewish cities, if they came for money purposes, we do not desecrate the Shabbos because of them [by warring against them]. But if they came [with the intention] to take lives, or even if they came with no announced purpose and there is reason to suspect that perhaps they came to take lives; then, even if they have as yet not come, but are making preparations to come, we go forth against them with weapons and desecrate the Shabbos because of them. When it is a city close to the border, then, even if they want to come only for the purpose of [taking] straw and stubble, we desecrate the Shabbos because of them; for [if we do not prevent their coming] they may conquer the city, and from there the [rest of the] land will be easy for them to conquer [since it is a city on the border]."From this halachah we learn the following: Even if the entire purpose and intention of the enemy is only to take ‘straw and stubble,’ and not to kill; and should we succumb to the enemy’s demands and give him the straw and stubble there will be ‘peace’ and no need for war; nevertheless, Torah tells us that the very threat of non-Jews taking over a city close to the border constitutes a state of pikuach nefesh -- and the Shabbos must be desecrated to prevent its occurrence. For since the non-Jews would then be in a strategic position to conquer the land itself, the security of the country is in jeopardy. Hence, although it is only a possibility in the future, Torah bids us, because of pikuach nefesh, to undertake all measures, including actual warfare if necessary, to prevent such a situation from developing. Or in other words: the mere possibility that the security of the country’s borders will, in the future, be weakened by the enemy’s actions now, is deemed by Torah to be a situation of immediate pikuach nefesh -- and must be prevented now.
The Situation in Eretz Yisrael Today
This is the clear halachah in Shulchan Aruch. Even a cursory look at the situation today in Eretz Yisrael will reveal the startling similarity to this halachah. The essence of the above halachah is the prohibition against allowing non-Jews to take control of a city next to the border for fear it will imperil the security of the country itself. This is exactly the situation today. Every inch of territory in Eretz Yisrael today contributes to its security; and to give it to non-Jews endangers that security. The unanimous opinion of military experts is that the lands are essential to Eretz Yisrael’s security, and to relinquish them poses a military danger to its very existence. The reason is simple. Strategic depth is vital to its security, as was so clearly demonstrated in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. We can only imagine what would have happened, G-d forbid, had Egypt been in possession of the Sinai; the Egyptian army could have easily penetrated to the very core of Eretz Yisrael. Yehudah and Shomron and the Golan Heights are even more vital for defensible borders; and to relinquish them outright, or in the form of autonomy which is the equivalent of giving them up, is endangering our security. All these lands are, in the words of Shulchan Aruch, "close to the border," meaning that giving possession of them to the enemy is leaving the rest of the land vulnerable to easy conquest.
Indeed, the situation today is, in several respects, more severe than that described in Shulchan Aruch. The Shulchan Aruch gives this directive 1) even when the non-Jews just want to come -- and we cannot be sure they actually will come; 2) even if they come they only demand straw and stubble, and probably will be satisfied with that and depart; [3]) even if they desire to actually conquer the city close to the border they may not be successful in their objective. Nevertheless, despite all these doubts, Torah tells us that since they may actually come; and since they may not be satisfied with just the straw and stubble; and since they may then conquer the city -- and thus the rest of the land will be open for conquest -- we must therefore take military steps to prevent this at the very beginning, when they are merely contemplating coming.
In today’s situation, the circumstances are not so doubtful. While Torah tells us we must keep the situation from even developing to the point that the enemy might be in a position to occupy a city close to the border, it is proposed that we actually give them these lands outright! Our strategic buffer zone will have been eliminated. The valuable extra time for our air defense to operate is gone. The Egyptian army will be positioned that much closer to the rest of Eretz Yisrael, and the densely populated inner core of the land is made infinitely more vulnerable to attack. Can there be greater danger to Jewish life than this?
Besides the actual lands, there are several other factors which also are a matter of pikuach nefesh, matters of life and death. In today’s times a nation’s military machine (and its economy) runs on oil. Without an adequate assured source of oil, no war can be fought for any reasonable length of time. In the Sinai, we had developed several important oilfields which were a major part of our oil supply. Without those oilfields Eretz Yisrael is dependent on foreign sources for 98% of its oil. Yet those oilfields are being given up as part of the Camp David process.
It must be emphasized that there is no substitute for Eretz Yisrael having its own sources of oil. The facilities are simply not there to store oil for any adequate length of time (as has been ascertained by numerous studies). Likewise, notwithstanding any assurances to the contrary, neither the U.S.A. nor any other country can be relied upon to supply us with oil. The U.S.A. has its own energy problems. It would be foolish and naive to think it will supply Eretz Yisrael with oil at a time when its own citizens may be angrily standing in long lines at the gas pumps.
The Sinai also contains the extremely valuable assets of Jewish settlements and airfields, developed by Jewish ingenuity at Jewish expense. Border settlements are our first line of defense against enemy armies and terrorists. To abandon these settlements means removing one of our strongest defenses and creating great danger to Jewish lives.
The airfields which we must relinquish under the terms of the treaty are among the most sophisticated in the world; and they will be handed over into Egyptian hands! This is a double jeopardy: we lose the airfields; and the enemy gains forward bases from which to menace the whole land.
Aside from the security aspect of the above, which, as explained, constitutes a clear case of pikuach nefesh, there are other, secondary matters involved. From the purely economic viewpoint, the results of the peace treaty are disastrous. At a time when every other country in the world is scrambling desperately to find ways to cut its energy costs, Eretz Yisrael is giving away its oilfields. Since giving up its oilfields, its energy bill has jumped by billions of dollars. And when the last oilfield is gone, it will have to import 98% of its oil -- at tremendous cost. To rub salt into the wound, we are expected to be grateful to Egypt for graciously consenting to ‘allow’ us to buy oil from those self-same oilfields -- which were developed by us in the first place!
To sum up: Shulchan Aruch instructs us that it is prohibited to allow lands which are necessary for secure borders to fall into enemy hands. It constitutes a danger to the entire land, and must be prevented even to the extent of desecrating the Shabbos because of it. All military experts agree that most of the Sinai, the Golan Heights, Yehudah and Shomron, are vital to the security of Eretz Yisrael. The halachah then must be that it is prohibited to give up these lands on the basis of such surrender being pikuach nefesh, a matter of preserving Jewish life.
Topic: Jews do not fight on the shabbat (Read 821 times)