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Israel Was Created to Ensure the Survival of the Jewish People

(Jewish Review of Books) Ze'ev Maghen - Critics refer to some of the newly ascendant parties in the Israeli government as "hypernationalist and Jewish supremacist." If by these epithets they mean that their members and supporters care more for Jews - their national family - than they do for the enemies of the Jews; that they are hell-bent on putting a stop to the weekly slaughter of innocent Jewish civilians by Arab terrorists; and that they believe that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish People, and oppose the erection of a jihadist Palestinian polity controlled by Hamas, then this is just classical Zionism. Ben-Gurion would affix his signature to these propositions. We, whose children and grandchildren will, God willing, grow up here in Israel, want peace more than anybody. We believe, as has many an Israeli strategist hailing from both sides of the political-ideological divide, that peace will come only if we are strong, and only if we are insistent on our rights to this land. In addition, we have noted that when Yair Lapid was at the helm, he came up with no better or more humane ideas for dealing with the conflict than any of his predecessors. The State of Israel was created, and continues to exist, for one purpose: to ensure the survival and prosperity of the Jewish People. Unless we keep present in our minds our polity's Jewish nationalist raison d'etre, and keep at bay those universalist, Western-based notions that are geared by definition to undermine nationalism in all its forms, this country is done for. The writer is chair of the department of Middle East studies at Bar-Ilan University.
2023-01-26 00:00:00
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