A RACE OR A RELIGION?:

To respond to the original question above, we need consider the core ideology with which the bulk of the normative religious Zionist community was indoctrinated: the triad of the People of Israel (Am Yisrael), in the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael) according to the Torah of Israel (Torat Yisrael).

When these seemingly unassailable values are signposts of individual conscience and commitment, they are innocuous enough, and may even be a source of inspiration and a call to altruistic action. However, assigning these values to a modern nation-state with aspirations to craft public and foreign policy is very dangerous, and that is what this "youth movement" ideology has unwittingly done. It betrays a total lack of understanding concerning the nature of the State of Israel as it was conceived of by its founders and indeed by the vast majority its inhabitants.

I wish to look at each of these principles separately and show how they stand in direct conflict to the Zionist project and undermine the State of Israel, but I must first establish why I, a religious Zionist myself, believing we answer to a "Higher Authority," also believe the nature of the state should be determined by the original conception of its founders and the majority of its inhabitants, even though Israel's secular institutions (like the Supreme Court and the Knesset) and its processes (like democracy, international law, and negotiated agreements) are all humanly legislated.

Rabbi Isaac HaLevi Herzog, the first chief rabbi of Israel, recognized clearly the nature of the state. Relating to freedom of worship and minority rights, such as the right to vote and be elected to office, he wrote,

The foundation of the state itself is a partnership of sorts. It is as if, through negotiations, we reached agreement with gentiles that they would allow us to establish a joint government which grants the Jews superiority in certain areas and that that state shall be called in our name. (Constitution and Law in a Jewish State According to the Halacha, vol. 1, 20)

Rabbi Herzog understood that the foundation of modern Israeli sovereignty is not derived from God's promise to Abraham or similar biblical narratives. He acknowledged that this modern state was different from the Israelite sovereignty (Malkhut Yisrael) in the days of David and Solomon, as well as the earlier state, when the Israelites entered the land of Canaan. Rather, the sovereignty is legally and halachically based upon the outcome of the negotiations which the Zionist movement (as the recognized representatives of the Jewish people) conducted with international bodies. The status of the international agreement, Rabbi Herzog maintained, is that of treaty between the nations and Israel; a brit or a covenant - not that of biblical Israelite dominion.

Rabbi Yehuda Amital, the rosh yeshiva and founder of Yeshivat Har Etzion, shared this view. I often heard him invoke Maimonides' reading of the Israelite covenant with the Canaanites of Giv'on (see Joshua 9), which emphasizes the prohibition to violate covenants with gentile nations (Laws of Kings 6:5), in the context of Israel's obligation to guarantee human and civil rights to all its citizens. Rabbi Amital maintained that the guarantee protection of democratic rights to non-Jewish minorities in Israel's Declaration of Independence was halachically binding, as a covenant with the non-Jewish inhabitants of the country.

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