On Standing With Israel

“Why should I stand with Israel? I’m not Jewish, and it’s a faraway country that has as much significance to my life as Burundi.” In giving the answer, an answer which is probably not what the reader expects, I speak for myself only, though there may be many of my peers who think the same.

My obligation is to a Jewish State, governed by Jewish law, in the borders promised by HaShem. I cannot compromise on that, especially not now that I have seen past compromises lead to only more bloodshed. I believe that the Land of Israel is Jewish land, as affirmed in Jewish sources throughout, and that none of it should be conceded to a fictitious nation that was concocted for the sole purpose of usurping our rightful claim to it.

On the one hand, I aspire to hold to the Jewish doctrine that only HaShem is to be trusted, not human beings. Therefore I reject putting all our trust even in a malchut shel chesed (kingdom of grace) like the United States of America. Those Jews who say, “America will save us from our enemies” or “If the USA doesn’t do something about Iran, we’re doomed”, are in the wrong; if the USA turns its back on us one of the coming years, it will be because of that way of thinking, for HaShem wishes us to trust in Him and not in mere men.

On the other hand, Zionism is regarded (by Religious Zionists like me) as the beginning of our salvation because it marks our return to history. For 2,000 years of exile, we were in the sidelines of history, except in the many conspiracy theories that were hatched about us. Now we are back to taking a real (and central, thanks in no small part to our enemies) part in world events. We are not isolated from world events; we are one of the eyes of the storm, of the current global conflict between Islamic imperialism and the non-Muslim world.

That, the balance between the Jewish particular dream (Zionism, Jewish sovereignty on the Land of Israel) and our return to world history (Israel as one of many non-Muslim states under attack by Islam), prepares the way for an answer:

If you support Israel out of belief in HaShem’s word, His Torah, as the Noahides and the Christian Zionists do, then may HaShem bless you abundantly. This Jew, if not many others, bears you his deep gratitude.

If you support Israel out of a pragmatic motive, such as a Hindu having realized that Israel and India are facing the same enemy, or an atheist reasoning that a small Jewish theocracy on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean is preferable to a worldwide Islamic one, just as I stand with Thailand because of my view of the Southern Thailand “ethnic Malay separatism” as being of the same nature as the “Palestinian national struggle” in Israel (that is, a cover for the local branch of Islamic imperialism), then may HaShem bless you also. HaShem desires the act first, for whatever motive, while the righteous motive can come later.

And now to the stance of which I said that it could sound surprising: if you say, “Israel does not concern me, neither for good nor for bad; I harbor neither like nor dislike toward it, my feelings toward it are neutral; let the two sides there sort things out on their own, and I have no desire to intervene for either side, neither militarily nor diplomatically”—if you say that, then that too is good! As I said, I trust in HaShem for help, therefore the neutral stance toward the Israel/“Palestine” conflict is no skin off my nose, in fact it is quite good in comparison to those stances whose holders I consider to be our enemies. Which are:

If you say, “Israel is endangering us and world peace, and support for it brings hatred and terror threats upon us, therefore we must pressure Israel to sign a negotiated, conceded peace treaty with the Palestinians”, then you are no longer neutral. You wish to appease the Muslims on Israel’s expense, and that makes you opposed to the imperative of Zionism, namely Jewish sovereignty on the Land of Israel. If you insist on believing in the Two-State Solution, despite all the evidence given that the Muslims (not “Palestinians”—there is no such nation) have no intention whatever of stopping at the territories taken in the 1967 War, because you think the interests of appeasement should take precedence over the harsh reality, then you are at war with Israel, even if only on the ideological level.

And yet, that position is next to nothing in comparison to the following:

If you are a doctrinaire believer in the wrongness, ab initio, of the Jewish State of Israel, talking of the “original sin” of its birth in 1947–9, calling for the application of the “Palestinian Right of Return”, and for the dissolution of the Jewish State into a binational Jewish/Arab state, then you are a sworn enemy of Israel, of Zionism and of the Jews in general. If you believe the existence of Israel as a Jewish state is a wrong, and that that existence is the major cause of the current worldwide conflict, and that the key to solving this conflict is the abolition of Zionism, and that every suicide attack and Kassam rocket (God forbid) on Israeli Jewish women and children is “blowback” or “resistance”, then I regard you as a modern-day Nazi-sympathizer (the modern-day Nazis being the Muslims), and I want you dead. By that, I do not mean assassination as the Muslims do in their lawless way, but I will pray for the rise of the Sanhedrin that will carry that out, at least on the more high-profile among those who are opposed to the Jewish State. We read in Pirkei Avot that Rabbi Hillel once walked along a river and saw a skull floating on it and said, “Because you drowned [a man], you were drowned; and those who drowned you will end up being drowned”. Why will those who drowned him end up being drowned, and how can such a chain ever end? The commentary says: they will be drowned because they took it upon themselves to drown him, instead of bringing him before the court to carry out justice. Enjoy, then, all you enemies of Israel, the period of grace you have until HaShem raises our Sanhedrin again (speedily in our days, amen).

In summary: I for one do not ask that you support Israel, only that you not stand against it. If you support it, for whatever motive, then may HaShem bless you. If you are neutral with regard to Israel, then there is peace between us. It is only if you wish to gain peace from the Muslims at our expense that you become our enemy. And if you are ideologically opposed to the very existence of the Jewish State, then we are openly at war, to the bitter end.

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; may they prosper that love thee.” (Psalms 122:6)