It’s one thing to quote Scripture, another to follow its wisdom. Consider the greatest monarch whoever served Israel, King David: “I did not consort with false men, nor with hypocrites have I associated. I hated the company of evildoers, and with the wicked I will not sit” (Ps. 26:4-5).

If this teaching were heeded, no Torah-true person would sit in Israel’s Knesset or on the Supreme Court of Israel, where he would be outvoted, respectively, by politicians and judges who do not regard the Torah as the supreme law of the land, indeed, where Israeli legislators often enact laws, and whose Israeli judges often render judicial decisions, that violate Torah principles and values.

The Knesset, observing 61 years of existence. Photo: Itzik Edri, CC BY 2.5 Generic License

Rabbis should be the first to emphasize that any Knesset Member or any judge that declares the laws of the State, and not the Torah, as the highest law of the land is uttering, in principle, the equivalent of Statist or Fascist doctrine, even if the laws in question are passed by a democratically elected parliament.

Every honest rabbi knows that those who dominate the Knesset or Supreme Court of Israel disdain or scorn the Torah. For example, on January 19, 1993 – and contrary to public opinion as well as established Jewish convictions – the Knesset legalized not only prostitution but meetings with the PLO, the successors of the Nazis. Meanwhile, Israel’s judiciary has rendered decisions that violate Shabbat and trample on the marriage laws which have preserved the distinctiveness, identity, and moral integrity of the Jewish people.

It’s hypocritical or intellectually dishonest for PM Benjamin Netanyahu to insist that the Palestinian Authority (PA) recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish People when this state violates the most basic laws of Judaism. Indeed PA leader Mahmoud Abbas could embarrass and silence Netanyahu and expose him as a fraud by casting these facts in his face on any public forum!

Indeed, when the “Jew” Shimon Peres, the author of the anti-Jewish Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement of 1993, applied for Israel’s membership in the Arab League, the latter responded by saying that Israel must first become Muslim. The least one can say of that villainous Arab entity is that it possesses an ideological integrity lacking in Peres, the guru of Israel, as well as in the clueless members of the Knesset who elected Mr. Oslo as Israel’s President!

When Israel ignores the Law of God, people laugh her to scorn

Why does Israel suffer constant vilification and harassment, while Jews are degraded on American college campuses? What else is to be expected when Netanyahu consorts with Jew-killers? And what other than contempt is to be expected when the Knesset is nothing more than a haven of jobbers, where as many as 33 political parties haggle for a larger slice of the public budget?

Most degrading is that Israel’s religious parties participate in this shameless arena of paltry egoism. That they are held in contempt by smug secularists is unsurprising. In Israel, every adult knows that “politics” and self-aggrandizement are synonymous. Hence, any person who thinks he will succeed in sanitizing politics by entering the Knesset is living in the world of Alice, or has also been contaminated by egoism.

Accordingly, if we heed the words of King David cited above, we should not support any so-called religious party. Indeed, we should call for their voluntary dissolution. Let me anticipate some objections.

First: “What can religious Israelis accomplish if they don’t form political parties and compete in national elections?” This means “what can such Israelis do without political power?” But it’s precisely because politics in Israel is nothing more than a struggle for power that it cannot solve basic human problems, let alone any basic Jewish problems. Jews in Israel are so conditioned by politics that they can’t think in any other terms. Of course, politicians couch their self-aggrandizement in altruistic terms such as the “common good,” “peace,” and “democracy.” However, only the benighted are deceived by such soporifics.

Second, it will be objected that the dissolution of religious parties will deprive Yeshivas of essential public funds. What an insult to Judaism and to Torah-true Jews! Besides, it is not at all clear that public funds for Yeshivas would cease in the absence of religious parties. After all, the secular parties would still have to compete for religious voters, who constitute an increasing percentage of the electorate.

Indeed, that percentage will increase more rapidly once the squalid example of religious parties ceases to alienate many secularists who, in their hearts, want to be more observant. It cannot be said too often that, despite Labor’s stranglehold on the news and education media, roughly 70% of Israel’s Jewish population are more or less “traditional.” Indeed, most Jewish households are reported to be chametz-free during Passover.

Now, do the math. If two-thirds of Israel’s Jewish population consists of more or less traditional or conservative Jews, then, if Members of the Knesset were individually elected in geographic constituencies, as opposed to party lists, that would make them accountable to their voters, and thus terminate the Oslovian idol to which Netanyahu has genuflected year after year since his 1995 election as Israel’s Prime Minister.

Of course, this would require of him a huge dose of courage and integrity, for it would not only require him to expose the Big Lie of Oslo. It would also make his Oslovian predecessors appear as cravens or villains. This would tumble Israel’s Government like a house of cards! ◙