“The Jewish settlers of Gaza and in the West Bank have a dream for the future of Israel… The settlers’ dream is to create a “Greater Israel” with Jewish settlements wall-to-wall… In such a state, democracy will have to bow to the rabbis. The Knesset, the government, the Supreme Court, will be allowed to continue to exist, provided that the rabbis approve of their decisions… -- Amos Oz, Israeli novelist and founder of Peace Now movement, London Times, August 24, 2005.

“Placing our trust in the Rock of Israel, we set our hand and testimony to this Declaration, here on the soil of the Homeland, in the city of Tel Aviv, on this day, the eve of the Sabbath, 5 Iyar 5708, 14 May 1948.”
-- Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

The great issues are on the table again. In the wake of Israel’s painful evacuation from Gaza, which began on August 17, people the world over are once again debating the meaning and destiny of Zionism. Let us attempt to gain perspective, as we embark on a discussion through biblical thought, Talmudic wisdom and Zionist doctrine.

Grace after meals
In Deuteronomy the Bible instructs us to bless G-d after eating a satiating meal. "You will eat and you will be satisfied and you will bless your G-d for the wonderful land He gave you."

So was invented "benching" (Yiddish for blessing), or "grace after meals," recited after every meal of bread, and consisting of a number of sections, or blessings. In the first blessing we express gratitude for the resources G-d created to nourish His creatures. The second blessing is a thank you for the beautiful land that He gave the Jewish people. In the third, we give thanks and pray for Jerusalem. These three blessings were fashioned to fulfill the mitzvah "You will eat and you will be satisfied and you will bless your G-d for the wonderful land that He gave you," linking gratitude for a meal with gratitude for the soil which produced the meal.

Yet there is a strange law associated with this ritual. The Talmud states that the second blessing, in which we express our gratefulness for the land, must include a few words about the Covenant G-d made with the first Jew, Abraham. In this Covenant, recorded in Genesis, G-d promised Abraham that He would give the land of Canaan as an inheritance to his descendants. What is more, in this blessing we must also make mention of the Torah, the Divine constitution of the Jewish people, which promises — scores of times — the land of Canaan to the Jews.

The sages are suggesting we must not only to thank G-d for the beautiful land itself, but we also must articulate our rights for this land: the Abrahamic Covenant and the Torah. "We offer thanks to You, Lord our G-d, for having given us as a heritage to our ancestors a precious, good and spacious land… for your Covenant which you have sealed in our flesh, and for Your Torah which You have taught us."

Benching vs. Hatikvah
Now, the Talmud is so emphatic about the inclusion of these two concepts -- the Covenant and the Torah -- that it states, "Whoever did not mention the Covenant and the Torah in the blessing for the land not fulfill his obligation." This person must repeat his grace.

This seems strange. The Bible merely states, "You will eat and you will be satisfied and you will bless your G-d for the wonderful land that He gave you." Period. Why the absolute necessity to mention the Covenant and the Torah? What is wrong with a simple offering of thanks for a beautiful national homeland?

In fact, the Israeli national anthem, sung at countless Jewish functions over the past 57 years, does just that. It speaks of "the 2,000 year old Jewish hope to be a free people in its land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem." It makes no mention of G-d's Covenant with Abraham or the Torah as the moral grounds for establishing the modern State of Israel.

Similarly, the signers of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, made no mention of G-d or Torah. After much debate, it was agreed upon to insert the ambiguous phrase "The Rock of Israel (Tzur Yisrael)," to be interpreted as one desired.

Torah vs. the UN
Yet the Talmudic rabbis, 1,700 years ago, apparently understood something about the Jewish psyche and Middle Eastern politics that eluded many of the founders of modern Israel.

The contemporary political conversation has many of us convinced that if Israel would only withdraw to its pre-1967 borders, Palestinians will make peace with the Jewish state. Hence, the praise in the world and Israeli media for the Gaza evacuation: It is a step in the right direction, the beginning of the end of Israeli occupation, the first mile in a road toward reconciliation and co-existence.

Yet these hopes insult Palestinians by making mockery of their own explicitly stated dreams and beliefs. Their words, repeated by their leaders repeatedly leave no room for doubt. “All of Palestine belongs to us,” is the Palestinian message. Palestinian leader Abu Mazan recently said that the Gaza withdrawal was the beginning of a process that would result in all of the Arab refugees returning to their homes of pre-1948.

That is why there was no peace before the 1967 war, a time of no Jewish settlements and no settlers. Gaza belonged to Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Jordan, and the Golan Heights to Syria. Why did six Arab countries decide to invade and exterminate Israel? Because, in their belief, the entire Zionist entity is illegal. All of Israel rests on occupied Arab land.

Only when Israel ceases to exist will the occupation cease. Peace will not come about by Israel giving away territory. Peace will arrive when responsible Arab leaders will reform Palestinian culture not to see the Jew as the "devil" and Israel as the "enemy of Allah." Peace will come when the world, instead of pressuring Israel to cede territory, pressures Palestinian educators and parents to teach tolerance, respect and civil morality. Until that day comes, Israel's giving away of land will only intoxicate Palestinians with the hope that their agenda of freeing all of Palestine from the Zionist enemy is achievable.

Whose home is it?

What makes this apparently straightforward idea so complicated? If Muslims in Detroit would begin blowing up busses or pizza shops and demanding a Palestinian State in Michigan, no one would question America’s right to eliminate the terrorists and not cede even an inch of land to them. When an enemy wises to destroy you, you must eliminate it. The reason Israel is treated so differently is that many see Israel as "partners in crime": Some Palestinians may be terrorists but Israel, too, shares in the guilt. It is an occupying state.

No one doubts that Michigan belongs to the United States. Hence, their right to fight for it and quench any attempt to seize it. However, in the case of Israel, the matter is about the question, does Israel have a right to defend itself while dwelling on stolen property?

Where exactly does Israel draw the line and declare, “From here on we are legal?” Moreover, based on which moral grounds can these lines be drawn?

The distinction between post-1967 Israel and pre-1967 Israel is artificial and mythical. The Arabs say that all of Israel is occupied. We must confront the painful truth: If the Jews living in Gaza, West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem are occupiers, then the Jews living in Tel-Aviv, Yaffa, Haifa and Rosh Pinah are the same occupiers. Many a city in pre-1967 Israel used to be Arab settlements, now occupied by Israel.

According to Arab doctrine, all the reasonable arguments in the world and all the UN resolutions combined will not change the belief that Jews are thieves, occupying the land of millions of displaced Arabs. Is it fair that because the Europeans were guilt-ridden after the Holocaust and were kind enough to give the Jews a slice of the Middle East, the Arabs have to pay the price and suffer?

The Failure
Here lies one of the greatest failures of secular Zionism. Its philosophy did not possess the tools to instill within its children the moral foundations for calling Israel a Jewish homeland.

If the Jewish people's connection to the soil between Jordan and the Mediterranean stems merely from Theodore Herzl's Zionist dream to give displaced and exiled Jews a national identity, endorsed by the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1947 United Nations' partition plan, their connection to the land remains fragile and ambiguous.

The moral foundation
The critical point is missing. For 3300 years, Jews breathed and lived with the conviction that the Creator of the world designated one piece of earth for them. Even in the most hellish moments of Jewish exile, our people clung to their faith that one day they would return to their Divinely promised land. The only reason Jews returned from Odessa, Vilna and Warsaw to Israel was because of their passion and belief that the Creator of the heaven and earth chose to give his Holy Land to the children of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, as stated hundreds of times in the Bible.

There are three billion people in the world who believe in the Bible, who live with the Bible and who quote the Bible. Secular Zionists should not have been afraid to bequeath this tradition and faith to their children.

Even the secular world seems to respect Jews who respect themselves and their faith. The world is waiting for Israel to treat Israel as G-d's personal gift to the Jewish people. This, and only this, is the moral justification for a Jewish presence in the Holy Land, in Jerusalem, Hebron, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Gaza.

Blessing or Curse?
That is why the sages said, "Whoever did not mention the Covenant and the Torah in the blessing for the land did not fulfill his obligation." If our sense of gratitude and connection to the land is based on the Divine Covenant with Abraham and the Torah, it will remain passionate, morally inspired and eternal. If not, our loyalty to our homeland hangs on a thread.

The Talmudic sages keenly grasped that if the thankfulness of the Jew for the Land of Israel is not based on the covenant G-d crafted with Abraham some 3,700 years ago, and on the Torah, the 3,300-year-old blueprint for Jewish existence, we might one day feel unappreciative -- rather than grateful – for the homeland flowing with milk and honey. We might feel compelled to rid ourselves from it.

I am not suggesting – as Amos Oz fears -- that citizens of Israel should legally be coerced to follow Jewish law. Most religious Jews I know would oppose such an initiative, as it would create an even deeper animosity to Judaism and its laws. In our world, religion and spirituality must be a personal choice coming from within. But every nation needs a soul. Even Israel. And the soul of the Jewish people for 4,000 years has been the Torah.

We cannot afford to lose our soul now.