Rebbetzin: The issue came out in returning Land for Peace. Chabad view of “not one inch” especially since “Hashem gifted the Land in a miraculous way, we must not squander this gift”, which is a Religious Zionist/Nationalist view, while our Gedolim held there is no problem to return Land to avoid pikuach nefesh (and saving one soldier’s life that would be r”l lost in a battle is an olom malleh).
This is a completely misstatement of the Rebbe’s position. In utter contrast to the Religious Zionists, whose opposition to Camp David was based on the Ramban’s shita that the mitzvah of kibush ha’aretz (which obviously overrides pikuach nefesh) is noheg bizman hazeh, and therefore territory must not be given away even if it were to save lives, the Rebbe explicitly based his opposition on pikuach nefesh, and on the explicit halacha in Shulchan aruch which defines that it is pikuach nefesh to allow foreign armies to occupy territory from which it will be easier for them to threaten any area with a Jewish population.
Joseph: 1. If it were certain that giving land away world save more lives, would Chabad support giving the land?
Yes, absolutely. The Rebbe said so explicitly, and not just any land but even Yerusholayim itself.
He was clear that just as when deciding whether shabbos needs to be broken for a sick person you ask doctors, so when deciding whether a piece of territory counts as “a border city” you have to ask currently serving military officers.
But we have to be clear about the question we are asking them: the only question is whether withdrawing from this territory creates a risk. Just as we are not interested in a doctor’s opinion on whether the spiritual benefits of fasting on yom kippur justify the risk, we are not interested in military officers’ opinion on whether the potential benefits of giving away territory are worth the risk. In both cases the Torah tells us no benefit can justify the risk, if there is one.