The greatest division among Jews
The liberal Jewish establishment, both in politics and the media, routinely castigates the religious settlers of Judea and Samaria, portraying them as a dangerous threat to the State of Israel itself. They seem to say that any Jew who believes in the foundational principles of Judaism strongly enough to stand up and fight for them is by definition a dangerous extremist who must be suppressed. Some even suggest it would be acceptable to invite foreigners to aid in the suppression. But what is the truth about the settlers? How do they see themselves?
Many settlers see themselves as Israel’s first line of defense against an enemy that wants to destroy not only them, but the entire Jewish nation. They believe that God promised this land to the Jews, and that retreating from it or shrinking from defending it would be an offense against the Almighty.
The Israelite nation was founded over 3000 years ago on two central principles, the supremacy of God and the truth of His Covenant, which includes the promise of the Land of Israel. These are the principles that have sustained us as a people and a nation throughout our entire history. But how committed is the Jewish State of Israel to these foundational Jewish principles?
The greatest division among Jews today is not between right and left, but between belief and disbelief. This division has existed throughout our history, but current circumstances are now pressuring us to move decisively in one direction or the other. So what are the essential differences between a worldview based on belief and a worldview based on disbelief, as a basis for policymaking in the State of Israel?
A believer would say that God promised us this land on the condition that we fulfill His Commandments. If we do so, He’ll enable us to take possession of the land with ease. There’s no need to divide it or retreat from any part of it. We can live in it securely, even if our enemies still hold malign intentions. It’s true that fulfilling the Commandments is very hard. It requires that we place our spiritual desires above our material ones, and place more importance on things that cannot be seen by human eyes, than on things that can be seen by human eyes. But if we succeed, the reward is very great.
A disbeliever, on the other hand, would say that God is a myth, there’s no such thing as a divine promise, the Torah has no relevance in the modern world, and the Arab claim to the land is just as valid as the Jewish one. Israel is vastly outnumbered by the Arab nations, and even though we managed to defeat them in 1948 and 1967, we can’t go on defeating them forever. The only way we can achieve peace is through a negotiated agreement which will inevitably involve painful territorial concessions on the part of Israel, in the form of granting the Palestinian Arabs a separate state of their own carved out of our ancestral homeland.
For most of Israel’s history, the top political echelons have been dominated by disbelief. The policy of “land for peace”, the Oslo Agreement which brought terrorist leader Yasser Arafat back from exile and enabled him to set up a new terror network in the heart of our ancient homeland, the forcible expulsion of Jewish communities from Gaza which led directly to the takeover by Hamas and the current war, are just some of the results of a mindset of disbelief. These policies have not brought us peace, lessened the hostility of our foes or made us more secure.
But the tide may now be turning, and the religious settlers in Judea and Samaria may be a harbinger of the change. The real Israel is beginning to emerge, the Israel that fears God more than it fears its enemies, that is not embarrassed to declare its allegiance to the Almighty, and that bows to the eternal truths of our faith, and not the transient and shallow idols that are so pervasive in today’s society.
The Almighty separated the Children of Israel for a purpose, and for thousands of years we’ve been pursuing that purpose, with many twists and turns, including periods of profound grief and loss. But now, the fulfillment of our purpose is starting to come into view. Our purpose as a nation is to bring the light of God into the world and by doing so elevate all of humanity. In the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”. May we merit to see it in our own days!