Britannia Radio

What Preserves Israel?

Published: Arutz Sheva -Saturday, November 19, 2011 10:07 PM

What or whom should we credit with the preservation of the Jewish state?

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

The writer is founder and president of the Israel-American Renaissance Institute (I-ARI)and co-founder and president of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy. In 1976, Eidelberg joined the faculty of Bar-Ilan University. His books, on the Arab-Israel conflict and Judaism, include Demophrenia, Jewish Statesmanship, and Toward a Renaissance of Israel and America . His latest book, America's Unknown Hebraic Republic, discusses the Hebraic background of the American Republic in which he sees a solution to the threat of Islamic imperialism. He has a weekly program on Israel National Radio, writes and lectures throughout Israel and the United States on a broad variety of subjects.

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No, it's not the Israel Defense forces, in my opinion.

The IDF hasn't won a war since the 1967 Six-Day War. And no one was more shocked by the IDF's route of the Egyptian army than Moshe Dayan. And of course the success of the Israel Air Force was extraordinary.

Should we credit Israel's prime ministers for the preservation of the Jewish state? Please, let's be honest. Whatever credit they deserve, not a single one really knew or knows what constitutes an authentic Jewish state—not even Menachem Begin, to say nothing of Ben-Gurion.

Just look at Israel's Declaration of Independence, a "politically correct" document. Unlike the American Declaration of Independence, which mentions the name of God in four different ways, Israel's Declaration can do no better than timidly or apologetically refer to God as the "Rock of Israel"

And if this Jewish self-effacement was not enough, the only name appearing in the text of the document is that of Theodor Herzl—admittedly a great man—but also an assimilated Jew whose book, The Jewish State, relegates Judaism to the home and the synagogue and thereby removes God from the domain of Statecraft.

The truth is that Israel has never had a Jewish prime minister whose legislative program or goal was to revive Hebraic civilization. Indeed, I don't think any of them had as much knowledge of the Hebraic Republic of antiquity than Samuel Langdon and Ezra Stiles, the 18^th century presidents, respectively, of Harvard and Yale.