by Professor Paul Eidelberg
I. Rootless Politicians, Rootless Judges
Commenting the Torah portion, the “Life of Sara” (in his monumental ouvre, Frameworks), Matis Weinberg writes: “With the Cave of Machpela, Avraham discovered … the intensity of his love of Sara, the depth of his roots in the earth, and his own need to remain rooted …”
In a marginal note, Rabbi Weinberg quotes Simone Weil: “To be rooted is perhaps the most important and the least recognized need of the human soul.” Unfortunately, Israel’s two most powerful office-holders, Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Supreme Court President Aaron Barak, are oblivious of this simple but profound truth, being themselves severed from the roots of the Jewish People. That such men should be at the helm of the supposed-to-be Jewish state is a mockery of Judaism and the Jewish heritage. Indeed, these “post-Zionists” are making Israel rootless, landless, and godless. But let us not obscure the failings of Zionists, be they secular or religious. Again Rabbi Weinberg: “The first acquisition of Eretz Yisrael was an act of love, an act which set the stamp of Avraham and Sara on the Land for all its future. It was an act of love sealed in the city of Hebron, which translates literally as ‘bonding.’”
How pallid the love displayed by our secular and religious Zionists in the Knesset. How they yielded, tamely and uncaringly, to the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles of September 1993, the so-called Oslo agreement with terrorists sponsored by the government of the United States. If anything is lacking among Israel’s political and judicial elites, it is love, a caring love for the one and only Jewish homeland. Thus it is that the late Yitzhak Rabin scornfully said of the Golan Heights, “This is tank land, not holy land.” Thus it is that under Rabin’s authority as both Prime Minister and Defense Minister, the words “Eretz Yisrael,” as well as the words “Judaism” and “Zionism,” were stricken from the Soldiers Code of Ethics. Thus it is that Ehud Barak, who was Israel’s Chief of Staff at the time, raised no objection to this mindless deJudaizing of Israel’s Defense Forces. Thus it is that loveless generals-turned-politicians are making Israel a “state of its citizens,” rather than the State of the Jews! Consistent therewith, so little does Justice Aaron Barak love Jewish heritage that he has been instructing Israeli judges, contrary to the Foundations of Law Act of 1980, that Jewish law and principles should not be given a preferred status vis-a-vis American, English, and Continental law. He writes: “It should never be said that a particular [legal] system has the primary claim to interpretive inspiration.” (Imagine a US Supreme Court justice teaching his fellow-countrymen, “It should never be said that the American legal system has the primary claim to interpretive inspiration”!)
As elaborated in my book Jewish Statesmanship: Lest Israel Fall, the Barak court, by forsaking the Jewish legal and moral heritage, has been assaulting the emotions and expectations of the older population, while rendering young people rootless and aimless, placing all at the mercy of personal whim, chance, and accident. Lacking a sense of national identity and purpose, is it any wonder that Israel is forsaking its heartland and retreating to the 1949 “Auschwitz” lines?
The loss of Israel’s heartland, however, needs to be understood not only in secular terms—the tendency of most right-wing critics of the Oslovian “peace process.” The Jews of Israel are suffering the humiliating and deadly consequences of G-Dless government, of political and judicial leaders who scorn the Torah—and with the compliance of the religious parties! It needs to be understood that the reported corruption of President Ezer Weizman and of Prime Minister Ehud Barak is very much a manifestation of an utterly corrupt system of government, one whose political and judicial institutions are further removed from Jewish principles of governance than the political and judicial institutions of any of the seventy-five countries now classified as democracies! In Israel alone, the entire country constitutes a single district where citizens have to vote for fixed party lists rather than for individual candidates directly accountable to them in constituency or multidistrict elections. The consequence is rampant corruption. Moreover, Israel’s Supreme Court is the only court in the world whose membership is determined primarily by the judges themselves rather than by popularly elected bodies. The consequence is self-perpetuating oligarchy. How can love of Eretz Yisrael flourish in this polluted atmosphere, where irresponsibility and open contempt for the heritage of the Jewish People are entrenched in the highest offices of the State?
It will be of no avail to replace the present regime with conventional Zionists. As Rabbi Weinberg concludes: “The bond to Eretz Yisrael cannot be based on petty nationalism. It is a bond … that penetrates deeper than any tribal rights to land or ethnic demands for political entities, [it is] a uniquely personal bond. As geopolitical forces focus on the nature of our attachment to the Land of Israel and demand of us soul-searching reconsideration, we need to remember that it became ours first and last through the love of a woman—the very Life of Sara, indeed.”
But let us also remember that Avraham is also called a “lover” of G-D (Isaiah 41:8). His Covenant with G-D is the source of the Jewish claim to Eretz Yisrael.
II. ANYONE FOR G-D?
Unlike Jewish leaders, Arab leaders frequently invoke the name of G-D in their ceaseless quest to gain control of the Land of Israel. Even if they have murder in their hearts, their appeal to G-D sanctifies His Name and thereby furthers the Arab cause vis-a-vis Israel whose leaders are unabashed secularists, not to say practical atheists.
These words may disturb some readers, but they go to the heart of the Arab-Jewish conflict. They also underlie the failure of secular as well as religious critics of the “peace process” to have any discernible effect on Israel’s government-sponsored death march.
No one can deny that the Arabs have made enormous gains since Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem in November 1977. Recall his speech in the Knesset, a speech broadcast to countless millions of people around the world. In the first ten sentences of that speech Sadat intoned the name of G-D ten times!
The question of causality aside, the fact remains that Egypt recovered the Sinai with its Alma oil fields and sophisticated air bases—a $17 billion infrastructure developed by Jews. All this Egypt obtained in exchange for what Sadat scornfully called “a piece of paper.”
And when Yasser Arafat triumphantly marched into Gaza and spoke of the ultimate aims of the “Palestinians,” he, too, invoked he name of G-D on behalf of the Arab cause. Behold the result: Is it not obvious that his cohorts are also gaining control of Judea and Samaria?
Turn, now, to the late King Hussein of Jordan. Again and again Hussein intoned the name of G-D while calling for “peace and justice,” whether he was speaking from Amman or from Washington. And lo and behold, in October 1994 he signed a peace treaty with Israel for which he was rewarded by the G-Dless government of Yitzhak Rabin with 330 square kilometers of Jewish land! The same godless government endowed Jordan with custodial rights on the Temple Mount, the holiest site of the Holy Land, the site where G-D’s presence was most manifest. Yet the religious parties supported that treaty, that Hilul Hashem!
Arabs, inspired by “Allah” and confident in the justice of their cause, advance; Jews longing for peace and silent about God retreat. Let us first try to understand the Arab advance and the Jewish retreat in psychological terms.
Because Jews clamor only for peace, they make no demands on Arabs. Indeed, Israeli governments are ever making gratuitous concessions. This can only arouse Arab contempt and encourage them to make more demands, however outrageous. But the Arabs are predisposed to make demands if only because they demand “peace and justice.”
Now justice involves a relation between persons and things. In the present context, the persons are Arabs and Jews, while the things consist of land. Arab leaders vow they will not be satisfied until they possess all the Land of Israel; the Jews are satisfied with a mere strip of this land. The asymmetry is striking.
The Arab’s maximalist attitude, parading in terms of justice, precludes justice. So does the Jewish attitude, which is silent about justice. The Jews are also silent about Divine Justice, according to which the entire Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish People. The Jews want only peace, for which they are willing to give Arabs land. But peace, unlike land, is not a tangible thing. Justice in these terms is not possible. Only Divine Justice is possible, but this exalted idea does not animate Israel’s godless leaders.
Nevertheless, G-Dless Jews have been desperately seeking a common ground with their Arab enemies. The Jews would like to believe that Arabs, like themselves, fear violent death, hence war. But Arab suicide-bombers tell a different story: they believe in paradise. G-Dless Jews do not. Another asymmetry. As for religious Jews, they cling to life under the concept of “pekuach nefesh.” So how can Jews, by yielding land, purchase peace from Arabs who love war and even death in the name of “Allah”?
G-D has given the Jews “good” enemies! For this enemy serves but one world-historical purpose, which is to render obvious the ineptitude and failure of the godless State of Israel and the necessity of reconstructing it on new grounds. Israel’s enemy, being implacable, will compel Jews to become Jews, to turn to God and not to America, for their salvation! This leads to our next topic.
III. ANYONE FOR A G-DLY ISRAEL?
I raise this question because there are various Zionist organizations here and abroad for a safe as well as for a strong Israel. These organizations have performed an important service. They have exposed the duplicitous and deadly nature of the Oslovian peace process. They have shown with compelling evidence that the Israel-PLO agreements have armed Israel’s enemies, have brought not peace but a war of attrition which has demoralized the Jewish people and truncated their one and only homeland.
I sometimes wonder, however, whether most Jews, be they Zionists or not, have an adequate understanding of what can make Israel safe and strong. Indeed, at the risk of alienating friends, I wonder whether emphasis on a “safe” or “strong” Israel is not counterproductive, in that such emphasis may obscure the one thing needed to make Israel safe and strong. The mere fact that Zionist organizations have failed to have any discernible impact on the land-for-peace policy of Israeli governments from Begin to Barak suggests, especially in view of their compelling revelations regarding the fraudulent and fatal nature of that policy, that they need to think more deeply about what Israel is all about. To be for a safe or a strong Israel is certainly meritorious, so long as it does not obscure the dire need of Jews to be, above all, for a Godly Israel, for only a G-Dly Israel can be truly safe and truly strong. Thus we read in the prophet Zechariah: “Not by armed might, nor by power, but by My spirit, says the Lord of Hosts” (4:5). Let us try to understand this verse by means of Israel’s most sacred symbol, the Menorah.
The light of the Menorah symbolizes knowledge, precisely spiritual enlightenment. The source of spiritual enlightenment is of course G-D. This enlightenment is manifested in the words of the Torah. As King David has written: “The Word of G-D is a LAMP unto my feet and a LIGHT unto my path” (Psalms 119:105). Or as his son King Solomon has written: “For the Commandment is a LAMP and the Teaching a LIGHT” (Proverbs 6:23). Israel will be safe and strong only if its prime ministers are men of Torah. Only if they imbue every heart and home with the light of the Torah will Israel enjoy peace. “For instruction shall go forth from Me, and I will create a quiet abode for My [people], so that it may SHINE upon the nations” (Isaiah 51:4). “O House of Jacob, come let us walk in the LIGHT of God” (Isaiah 2:5). When Israel suffers murder and misery, it is because “they rebel against the LIGHT, do not recognize the ways of G-D and never seek serenity [or peace] in His paths” (Job 24:13). As Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch points out, Scripture uses the words “lamp” and “light” as metaphors for the source of growth and life, of undisturbed progress and happiness. Hence the spirit of G-D mentioned in Zechariah denotes not only the means for attaining perception, but also the motivation for action.
Now, it should be noted that the Menorah resembles a tree with a central shaft generating three branches from one side and three branches from the other side. The central shaft symbolizes the spirit of G-D. From Isaiah (11:2) we learn that whereas the three branches of one side of the Menorah symbolize wisdom, counsel, and knowledge, the three branches from the other side symbolize understanding, strength, and fear of G-D. Imbued with the spirit of G-D, Israel will unite theory and practice, perception and accomplishment.
Unless they stem from the spirit of G-D, what is called “wisdom,” “counsel,” “knowledge,” “understanding,” and “strength” will be futile. “I am the Lord … that turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish” (Isaiah 44:24-25). As for the fear (really awe) of G-D, this, says King David, is “the beginning of wisdom” (Psalms 111:10). If Israel’s leaders feared G-D, they would not have made a covenant of death and lies with PLO terrorists. (See Isaiah 28:15.)
But merely to critically analyze the suicidal stupidity and mendacity of Israel’s political elites will have no impact on their behavior, since such knowledge is not linked to the spirit of God. This is why Isaiah says that G-D “confirms the words of His servant, and fulfills the counsel of His messengers” (44:26). Which means that it is not enough for critics to expose the lies and lethal nature of the Oslovian peace process. Their words must be motivated by the desire to sanctify the Name of G-D. G-D’s Name must be in their hearts and on their lips. “Thus said the Lord, your Redeemer and the One Who formed you [Israel] in the womb: I am the Lord, Who has made everything; Who spread out the heavens by Myself, and formed the earth of My own accord; that frustrates the signs of imposters, and makes rulers mad …” (Isaiah 44:24-25). Are not Israel’s rulers “mad”?
Hence I say, all honor to those who are for a safe and strong Israel. But now I ask: Anyone for a G-Dly Israel? And if not, perhaps this is why Israel is shrinking.
IV. WHY ISRAEL IS SHRINKING
Few people really understand why Israel, undefeated in war, is withdrawing to her precarious 1949 armistice lines. Before discussing this bizarre phenomenon, let us briefly review the stages of Israel's truncation.
The first step in Israel's withdrawal to the 1949 borders was taken in 1979 by the Likud-led government of Menachem Begin, a vaunted nationalist who signed away the Sinai to Egypt, a military dictatorship whose tourist maps of the Middle East still omit the word “Israel.”
The second step was taken in 1993 by the Labor-led government of Yitzhak Rabin, a reputedly principled politician. Nevertheless, contrary to his pledge to the nation, Rabin not only agreed to withdraw from the Golan Heights, but signed away Gaza and Jericho to the PLO, a criminal organization whose stationery logo depicts Israel as “Palestine.”
The third step in this shrinkage of Israel was taken by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ostensibly a right-winger, who proceeded to withdraw from 80 percent of Hebron in 1997 and from other areas of Judea and Samaria the following year.
Enter Prime Minister Ehud Barak, now preparing to abandon 18,000 Jewish residents on the Golan Heights, contrary to the position he held in 1995, when he was Chief of Staff. In fact, Barak is willing to withdraw unilaterally from the Golan, to surrender this land to Syrian dictator Hafez Assad, who celebrates the Yom Kippur War by having militia men twist the heads off puppies and drink their blood! And to make this territorial retreat palatable to Israelis, Barak now praises Assad as a “great man”—the man who said: “I want to see a funeral on Israel television every day”! Why this insane and humiliating retreat, unprecedented in the annals of history? Why has Israel, with a never defeated army and superior air force, agreed to surrender part of its ancient homeland? This land was not only conquered by Israel in 1967 in a war of self-defense, but the American Joint Chiefs of Staff acknowledged that the Golan Heights, as well as the Judean and Samarian hills, and even parts of the Sinai, were essential for Israel's security—a strategic assessment affirmed to this day by now retired American generals.
Why, then, have various Israeli governments regarded this land, which so many Jews yearned for, fought for, and died for, as expendable? What is it that compels Israeli governments to yield this Jewish patrimony to Arab despots who have used this land only to wage war against the Jewish people?
As indicated above, the conventional answer is American pressure on the one hand, and Israel’s loss of will or its yearning for peace on the other. Anwar Sadat had a more penetrating view of the matter. Shortly after his Jerusalem visit of November 1977, he declared: “Fear is the second layer of skin of every Israeli or Jew.” This suggests that Israel is withdrawing to her 1949 borders because Jews are dominated by the fear of violent death. If so, Israel's yearning for peace would merely be facade for cravenness—as would her yielding to American pressure. We may go even deeper.
Almost any normal person fears violent death. But for Jews to surrender part of their homeland to avoid violent death suggests that they regard violent death as the greatest evil (the secular foundation of Hobbes’ 17th century but still current political philosophy). Obviously those who deem violent death as the greatest evil will seek peace at any price. And yet, only arrant fools would expect to obtain genuine and abiding peace from inherently bellicose Arab-Islamic regimes by surrendering territory.
Arabs can't live in peace with each other, much less with Jews. Indeed, the vast majority of Israel's own Arab citizens have openly rejected Israel's right to exist as a sovereign state! This being the case, to say that fear of violent death is that which underlies Israel's withdrawal to its indefensible 1949 borders is insufficient. To abject fear one may add stupidity or madness.
What is operating in Israel, however, is not mere stupidity but extraterrestrial stupidity, not mere madness but metaphysically induced madness—as the verses of Isaiah cited above illustrate. Which means that the ultimate reason why Israel is withdrawing to her 1949 borders is that this so-called Jewish state has relied on everything but God for its salvation: territorial depth, military power, the United States, democratic sympathies abroad, Arab recognition, and now Shimon Peres’ smug fantasy that Islam can be pacified by the promise of economic prosperity in the Middle East. How different from Arabs, who never fail to invoke the name of Allah in their unrelenting quest for the Land of Israel. And they are obtaining control of this land, piece by piece.
This piece-by-piece process is reducing the State of Israel to nothingness. And so it must be, for this State, as may be seen in the first sentence of its Declaration of Independence, is based on the denial of the Sinai, hence of the G-D of Israel. That first sentence proclaims, “The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish People.” This denial of Sinai manifests the 19th century doctrine of “territorial nationalism,” despite the fact that the Jews were a nation before they had a land. The only justification Jews have for living on this land is that they live as a nation dedicated to God. It is in this light that we are to understand the fundamental reason why Israel is losing Eretz Yisrael.
Not a single political or religious party presently in the Knesset has come to grips with the one thing needful, to bring G-D back into the domain of statecraft. This could have been done by translating the miracle of the Six-Day War of 1967 into public policy, i.e., by incorporating Judea, Samaria, and Gaza into the State of Israel—this, when the US was bogged down in Vietnam, and when only Israel could have prevented Soviet penetration of the Persian Gulf.
The G-D of Israel has simply been ignored, and this is precisely why Jews are so fearful and so bewildered. Nothing else can rationally and adequately explain Israel's inane and insane retreat to her 1949 “Auschwitz” lines.
V. WHY PEACE ELUDES ISRAEL
It will hardly do to explain this retreat in terms of Israel’s ardent desire for peace. This desire has resulted not in peace but in Israel’s demoralization and emasculation. Indeed, the desire for peace, uttered ad nauseum by Israeli politicians, has emboldened Israel’s Arab-Islamic enemies and made them contemptuous of peace-seeking Jews. Here one might ask: Did England’s or France’s desire for peace transform Germans or their leaders into doves? Germany, remember, was the home of humanism and rationalism, of philosophy and science. Are Moslems more humanistic than the nation that produced Kant, Schiller, Heine, Planck, and Einstein?
But let me address Israel’s political and intellectual elites, those who believe that the policy of “land for peace” will pacify Israel’s Arab-Islamic neighbors. “Why should you expect peace from Moslems who despise Israel as an outpost of Western civilization that threatens the religio-political power structure of the Islamic world?”
“Why should you expect peace from Palestinian Arabs whose children are taught to hate Jews and exalt suicide bombers?” “Why should you expect peace from Arabs despots, be it Yasir Arafat or Hafez Assad, who tyrannize and terrorize their own people? Stated more generally: Why should you expect peace from Arab regimes based on the primacy of force and fraud, as some 20 Arab dictatorships amply demonstrate?”
Now let me address Israeli politicians and intellectuals who, though skeptical about the land-for-peace policy, have the word “peace” ever on their lips. Suppose you declared: “I do not desire peace with Arab despots who luxuriate in splendor while their people are steeped in abject poverty.”
Suppose you added: “I do not desire peace with Arab states whose rulers deprive their people of liberty and use them as cannon fodder to make war – yes, and who thereby violate the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Are you manly enough to proclaim such a attitude? Then let me suggest some other declarations one might make in a world whose democratic leaders are not silent about evil.
“I do not want peace with tyrannies, that is, with regimes ruled by evil men. I do not want to dignify their regimes and thereby abet the designs of the wicked.” “I do not seek peace with liars and murderers like Yasir Arafat and Hafez Assad lest I confuse, disarm, and foster cynicism among my countrymen. I prefer to arouse in such villains fear rather than allow them to lull us with professions of peace.”
Do you think such statements will make Arab dictators more bellicose? Has ceaseless professions of peace, nay, has Israel’s 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, made that dictatorship less militant? Then why is Egypt, a regime threatened by no one, engaged in an unprecedented military build-up? Why does Egypt’s state-controlled media continue to spew anti-Israel and anti-Jewish venom?
I ask all those addicted to peace: “What makes you think that people in general are peace-lovers like yourselves? Why is violence the staple of Western entertainment? Why do Blacks murder Blacks almost every day in the capital of the USA?”
Closer to Israel: “Why did Moslem and Christian Arabs slaughter each other in Lebanon—perhaps as many as 100,000 in the 1970s? Leaving aside the killers and killing fields in Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Chechnya, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, why should Palestinian Arabs, who supported Saddam Hussein’s rape of Kuwait, another Moslem country, live in abiding peace with Israel? To repeat: if Moslems can’t live in peace with each other, why should you expect them to live in abiding peace with Jews?”
All this is pathetically obvious, and it should be even more obvious to Israelis! Hence one can only wonder why Israel’s political and intellectual elites can’t see that Israel is no closer to genuine peace now than it was fifty-two years ago. Indeed, perceptive critics of Israel’s land-for-peace policy are utterly dumbfounded by their inability to convince these elites that this policy is utterly suicidal. While most critics explain that policy in terms of American pressure, others emphasize the character faults of Israeli prime ministers, the demise of Zionist idealism, or the prevalence of an Israeli death wish. Let me offer another explanation of Israel’s folly, but also of the ineffectiveness of its critics.
Exodus 15:3 states that “G-D is the Master of war,” but therefore also of peace. Since war and peace are in the hands of God, meaning the G-D of Israel, whether Israel will have peace or war depends on how this country relates itself to G-D. So long as Israel’s government is estranged from G-D, hence from the way of life portrayed in the Torah, the people of Israel will not have peace. But this is why Israel is beset by the best of enemies: Arabs who will not and cannot be pacified by the policy of “land for peace”!
The G-D of Israel has given His people an enemy that unwittingly compels them to face the ultimate reason why peace eludes the supposed-to-be Jewish state!
VI. THE MOST SHAMEFUL SHAME
EMIL FACKENHEIM writes (in What is Judaism?): “The whole purpose of the [Nazi] program was to reduce Israel to excrement. That program included the G-D of Israel.” This, I dare say, is the ultimate purpose of Yasser Arafat’s PLO, the successors of the Nazis and the spearhead of the Arab-Islamic world’s hostile designs toward Israel. Like his patron Egypt, the PLO-led Palestinian Authority is engaged in a military buildup. Like Egypt’s state-controlled media, Arafat’s Palestinian media spew forth the most obscene vilification of Jews and of Israel. This being so, must we not say shame! shame! a thousand times shame! to Israeli prime ministers who hobnob with that murderous villain? Their shame smells to high heaven, for in the name of “peace” they have desecrated the Name of G-D.
The prophet Isaiah tells the Jews: “Stupify yourselves, and be stupid” (29:9) And he proclaims G-D’s warning: “Woe to them that take counsel … but not in Me ... that go to Egypt [today America] for help, that rely on horses and trust in chariots … but look not to the Holy One of Israel” (30:1). Today these exhortations are not to be directed solely against Israel’s left-wing secular elites, the most zealous advocates of the American Middle East “peace process.” Are not the religious and right-wing critics of that peace process the most “knowledgeable,” hence even more foolish for not taking counsel in the G-D of Israel? Why haven’t the critics cried “shame! shame! a thousand times shame!” against the desecration of G-D’s Name perpetrated by the stupified collaborators of that ignominious peace process? Why? Because they care not for the God of Israel and the honor of His Name. Which is why G-D does not care for the pseudo-democratic State of Israel—this shrinking, secular, disgraceful State, which has no right to be called by the sacred name of Israel.
All but fools know that the American Middle East “peace process” is a deadly fraud. It is known by most Israelis, any mindless polls to the contrary notwithstanding. Then why does Israel continue to retreat to its defenseless 1949 armistice lines? We have seen that most critics blame “American pressure.” Others deplore “the cowardice of Israeli leaders” or “the demise of Zionism,” while still others speculate about “Jewish self-hatred or self-immolation.” And all fault Israel’s left-wing media. But as I have also shown, more fundamental is the fact that the Jews of Israel simply do not care enough for G-D—do not yearn to restore His presence amongst them, as in days of old. Even so with religious Jews. Have not the religious parties invariably supported the shameless Middle East “peace process,” i.e., the diminution of Israel initiated by the Likud at Camp David? All their pious talk about “pikuach nefesh”—when anyone with a stitch of intellectual integrity can see this is a stupid and cowardly lie.
After surveying the futility of two decades of criticism of this shameless American-sponsored peace process, an impartial observer might say to the Jews of Israel: “Hundreds of thousands of you demonstrated against withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Suppose you had demonstrated against the desecration of G-D’s Name committed by one Israeli government after another?
Never mind that a large percentage of the demonstrators were not religious: all would have been denounced as ‘religious fanatics.’ But weren’t religious and non-religious residents of Judea and Samaria denounced as ‘fanatics,’ for opposing this ‘peace process,’ as they did, however, primarily on grounds of security?” This touches the heart of matter. The critics never tire warning us about “security.” “Security” has been the god of the critics, pitted against the god of the “peace process.” Behold two “ignorant armies that clash by night,” heedless of the one and only G-D, the G-D of Israel. If we but cared enough for Him, He would care for us and provide for our security.
But we are afraid to utter His Name. Unlike Moslems, we are afraid to restore G-D’s place in the domain of statecraft. We are afraid of being called “religious fanatics,” just as religious and nationalist Jews in the Knesset are afraid of being called “racists,” were they to act in concert to expel Arab MKs who violate the law prohibiting any party that negates the Jewish character of the State. Do such Jews really care about the G-D of Israel?
Urgently needed, therefore, is self-criticism. Critics of the “peace process” must see themselves as not having cared for G-D, enough to say: “We must not, we dare not, forsake our Creator, the G-D of Israel. We must not, we dare not, betray His Covenant with our Patriarchs and with our People at Mount Sinai. He has given us the Torah, has thereby made us a Nation without equal in history. He has given us our prophets, our sages, our philosophers, our poets, our wisdom, our dignity, our purpose as the teachers of mankind. We must not, we dare not, forsake Him. Then let us speak proudly in His Name, lest we succumb to the most shameful shame!”