Cornelis Hulsman became interested in the Israeli movement for peace between Israelis and Palestinians early on in his career. He was born into a Dutch Christian Reformed family deeply interested in Israel and convinced that the modern State of Israel was based on Biblical prophecies that God would bring the exiled Jewish people back to the land of their forefathers. Hulsman became interested in the Oz Ve-Shalom movement, a religious Israeli peace movement which was founded in 1974 in response to the establishment and activities of Gush Emunim. Oz Ve-Shalom received an extra impulse after the 1982 Lebanon War and the activities of Peace Now. The movement was founded by a group of younger Zionist-Orthodox activists who wanted a peace movement that appealed to a religious audience, and they were supported by some older scholars such as Prof. Dr. Joseph Walk (1914-2005), formerly a professor of history at Bar Ilan University (1964-1981) who led the Leo Baeck Institute in Jerusalem (1978-1982). He was co-founder and Secretary of Oz Ve-Shalom. Hulsman met Prof. Walk as well as many others in the Orthodox Jewish peace movement and participated in a Dutch delegation, organized by among others Pax Christi and the X-Y movement, visiting both Palestine and Israel, including a Gush Emunim settlement. At the time, Hulsman sympathized with the views expressed by Prof. Dr. Joseph Walk. Later, however, he could no longer believe that the modern State of Israel is the fulfillment of Biblical promises.
Hulsman’s booklet about Oz Ve-Shalom proved to be great advertising for a well-attended public discussion at Leiden University on May 25, 1982, on the question of whether or not God had promised land to the current State of Israel. Speakers were Rabbi H. Rodriques Pereira; Dr. P.B. Dirksen, Professor of Old Testament at Leiden University; Prof. Hoftijzer, Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at Leiden University (not mentioned in the AO publication. He agreed to join after the booklet had come out.); and Mr. Cornelis Hulsman.
In view of the recent one-sided peace proposal by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu the text has regained its pertinence.
Dr. P.B. Dirksen, who attended the public discussion in 1982, highlighted the text’s relevance today, even though it was written in 1982. You can read his full text here.
