How to Establish Peace in the Holy Land

community in diaspora enjoys the right to return to its original home. The Biblical term ‘promised land’ has this very meaning, and the Balfour Declaration (1917) was exactly in accordance with this law of nature, as prescribed in the Quran. In this declaration the Jews in diaspora were given permission to return to Palestine under a limited quota system. The Arab leaders should have accepted this as a legitimate decision. But they refused to accept it and showed their strong reaction to it. This was the beginning of the present Palestinian movement. To my way of thinking, this was a very unwise decision on the part of the Arabs, because this movement proved to be counterproductive. 3. The third point in this connection concerns the course of action which should be followed. We have been given a specific injunction on this point. That is, in all controversial matters, to adopt peaceful method. The Quran tells us: ‘Reconciliation is the best.’ 5 That is to say, at the time of controversy, Arab leaders have to adopt a peaceful rather than a violent course of action. As regards the present situation, the peaceful method was certainly an option in the case of the Palestinian movement. But the Arab leaders have adopted a violent course of action throughout the history of their movement. This is clearly a violation of Islamic principle. Such a movement is destined to yield no positive results, as it is totally against the policy of the Prophet Muhammad. The policy of the Prophet can be summarized thus: whenever he had to choose between two courses of action, he invariably opted for the easier or the peaceful course of action rather than the harder (violent course of action).6 4. The argument of the Arab leaders to justify their