The Government of Israel is preoccupied, as usual, with security. Hence it is devoid of a constructive political philosophy clear enough to guide statesmen and vivid enough to inspire youth. Witness the transformation of Zionism, a shallow secular ideology, into an anti-Jewish post-Zionism.

Don’t blame Labor only

Superficial observers blame the Labor Party for this decadence. But the Likud is also decrepit, being nothing more than right-wing of Labor Party. Even more culpable are the religious parties which, despite their promotion of Torah education, have contributed nothing to statecraft.

As I have often observed, the seed of this secular decay was planted in the opening sentence of Israel’s so-called Declaration of Independence (which four rabbis signed). Aping the 19th century doctrine of territorial nationalism, the secular authors of that document proclaimed, at the very outset, that “The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people.” This falsehood, this denial of the Sinai Covenant, which made the Jewish people a nation under God, is the root cause of Israel’s political decay and territorial truncation.

In short, they made territorial nationalism the basis of the Jewish State. When they did that, they abandoned Israel’s only solid justification, God’s Covenant with the Jewish people. Divine Justice requires the piece-by-piece loss of that territory. This is why well-intended but misguided critics of the “territory-for-peace” policy have had no impact on Israel’s misguided government.

Zionism takes the name Zion in vain

What the critics should have emphasized is that the metamorphosis of Zionism into post-Zionism is a consequence of secular Zionism’s misuse of the term “Zion.” That term is one of the most sacred words in the dictionary of authentic Judaism. Zion is the dwelling place of God’s glory. It is the Sanctuary of the Torah, the Holy City which surrounds it, the Holy Land of which Jerusalem is the eternal capital. From Zion, from Jerusalem, the word of God – the Truth – shall come forth. The very term “Zion” is now corrupt. So even the Vatican, a seedbed of pious hypocrisy, has endorsed the creation of a Muslim state in the Holy Land. (Never mind that Islam deems the Pope an infidel!)

This is the price paid for betraying the God of Israel and His Covenant with the Jewish people. Indeed, that Covenant of old, which endowed the Jewish people with life and direction, has no more respect. Instead we have a new covenant: the Oslo covenant of death with the PLO-Palestinian Authority. (See Isaiah 28:15.) Infamy of infamies, the religious parties outdid the Vatican’s two-faced endorsement of the two-state “solution” by condoning the perfidious Oslo Covenant. And even now, with death hovering over Israel, the PC religious parties sustain a government of blind-deaf-mutes. With Iran developing nuclear weapons to fulfill its curse “Death to Israel,” no one calls for the abrogation of Oslo, and no one even harbors the idea that the State has exhausted its historical tenure under secularism.

Exchanging true God for democracy

Of course, the political heirs of those who founded the State had to offer a substitute for decayed Zionism to justify their existence. So they replaced the God of Israel with the god of Democracy!

Ponder, therefore, the words of Jeremiah (2:11-13):

Has a nation [ever] exchanged its gods, [even] though they are not [genuine] gods? Yet My people has exchanged its glory for something vain. Be astonished, O Heavens, over this; and be horribly afraid, be utterly amazed and devastated — for My people have … forsaken Me …

And the consequences

Note how fearful and confused the Government is. None can be more spiritually desperate and timid than Israel’s ruling elites. They have no ideology other than the meaningless pluralism of Democracy. So these elites can only destroy or seek to destroy the Judaism still alive in Israel. Hence they harass religious Zionists who want to the Government to extend Jewish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Jewish civilization. Power has become the paramount purpose of Israel’s ruling elites, hence their treachery.

Let us face some ugly facts. Labor’s policy of “territory for peace” became the policy of the Likud. Likud leaders, from Rabin to Netanyahu, discerned that if Jewish sovereignty ever extended over Judea and Samaria, this ancient Jewish land would become the haven of a burgeoning Jewish population. The power of the secular parties in the Government would gradually evaporate. Israel would become an authentic Jewish polity. This would mark the end of shallow Zionism. The God of Israel would come home.☼