Israel, which has the most formidable military power in the Middle East, has been the victim of non-stop Arab-Islamic terrorism since the Government signed the Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement of September 1993. Why?

How are we to explain that regardless of which party is at the helm, whether it be Labor or the Likud, Israel displays no deterrent power against her sworn enemies?

A common explanation is that Israel’s enemies are animated by religious fervor, that is, by Islam’s 1,400-year tradition of jihad. This explanation is certainly relevant, but let me offer another reason for the indecisiveness of Israel’s military power.

Israel as secular state

IAI Lavi B-2 prototype at Muzeyon Heyl ha-Avir, Hatzerim, Israel. 2006. Photo: User Bukvoed/Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported License

The most important reason is this. First and foremost, Israel is a secular democratic state whose leaders are not animated by any distinctive Jewish goal, one that would endow Israeli prime ministers with national pride and purpose.  Absent in these politicians is serious and steadfast conviction in the truth and grandeur of the Torah and in the unique nobility of the Jewish heritage, which even learned Gentiles admire as unsurpassed in wisdom and creativity.

Israel simply lacks statesmen whose intellectual and moral character is worthy of this heritage. Its half-educated leaders can only boast of Israel’s being “the only democracy in the Middle East.”  They are mindless of the fact that Aristotle, the world’s greatest political scientist – indeed, the founder of political science – held that democracy, though not as bad as oligarchy, is basically an unjust form of government!

That the formidable State of Israel should be locked in an interminable war with the PLO, a mere consortium of terrorist groups, and that Israel’s rulers should yield sacred Jewish land to these thugs, confirms Aristotle’s assessment that democracy is a perverse and contemptible form of government.

I say this regardless of the government’s achievements when weighed against 15,000 Jewish casualties as well as by the trauma suffered by even more Jewish women and children. This suffering of Jewish women and children prompted former Israeli politician Ephraim “Effi” Eitam, a military commander and member of the National Religious Party, to question the manliness of Israel’s ruling elites!

Is it any wonder that Muslims persist in their genocidal war against Israel and her anything but heroic leaders? It comes down not to a question of arms, but to a question of character or morale, ultimately, the most important factor of a nation’s military power.◙