Israel's Domestic Dilemma
The Jewish nation is terribly divided against itself (a fact evidenced by emigration statistics, spats between secularists and religious Jews, and between various groups of religious Jews, and six economically crippling Histadrut strikes in the past eighteen months). As a body, it is threatened by the lack of a solution to the lingering and explosive Genocidal War on Israeli Jews, and an international boycott. Pressures upon Israel's governing body and military from the World Court, the UN, and international boycotts are further deteriorating the direction of the Knesset and the military and thus, local morale.
Our multicultural people, who vary widely in their worldviews, are presently confused as to the role of Israel's government, and the government seems rather unstable given the five and counting no-confidence votes of March 2004. Israel is haunted by the need for a defense from hostile, genocidal residents and hostile, genocidal neighboring countries, international censure, an ongoing debate regarding a Jewish versus secularly-accented body of law, etc.
Israel needs to re-engineer itself, to be reborn as a functional, healthy society. As former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau announced at the March 15-17 2004 Jerusalem Conference, and at a Labor party meeting three years ago, "?after 55 years, the Knesset has not, to this day, found the time to take five days and discuss what exactly this Jewish State we have created is meant to be . The words 'Jewish State' are mentioned 22 times in Israel's Declaration of Independence - not "State of the Jews", but rather "Jewish State" - and yet the Knesset has never found time to define just what that means."
Future Stability for Israel Depends on Capable Leadership and a Productive Internal Alliance
Given all that, future stability for our State depends upon capable leadership and the alliance that it must cultivate among Israel's citizens. Statecraft of this nature, for the tiny Jewish homeland, requires an intra-Jewish diplomacy of dialogue rather than the baffling, counterproductive, behind-closed-doors policies that apparently reign today (Prime Minister Sharon's hotly contested Unilateral Withdrawal Plan is but one example of such policies). Israelis want to stand up for themselves, and perhaps they would if they could only determine who they are and what they want as a body politic.
Open communication channels would require that the citizens of the Jewish State assume upon themselves the obligations of sharing an alliance with all inhabitants of the land: defense from hostile, genocidal residents and hostile, genocidal neighboring countries, international censure, a Jewishly versus secularly accented body of law, etc. Peoples not willing to accept the responsibilities of this alliance would consequently lose political or economic rights. It thus would not be in the interests of disagreeable or murderous foreigners to stay or to live in Israel for long. Israel would retaliate against internal and external dissent in order to protect the majority members of its consensual society. An illustration of this principle is to think of how unwise it is to commit mass murder and mayhem on the US and its allies. The US and her allies track the whereabouts of resident enemies, limiting access to sensitive locations and information, and imprisoning, deporting or executing malcontents who threaten the safety and freedoms of law-abiding citizens.
Alliances Determine a Society's Agenda and its Domestic Ethical Containment Force
The first task of any new, democratic government is to form an alliance with the diverse, possibly dispersed peoples it will govern. Then the "led" members of that society will be able to understand and to approve of the government's agenda. The consensus can also give rise to understandings that will be protected on the formative, defining and public documents of the society, and to its desired domestic accomplishments.
As the alliance between the governing body and the governed public develops, a moral code or domestic ethical containment force is inevitably and simultaneously established (within those protective documents). The moral borders of an established society would naturally and simultaneously rest on the cultural alliance(s) of the people within that society. With the alliance thus accomplished and the issues settled, statecraft can commence. It would make a good case scenario for beleaguered Israel.
Statecraft Commences and Endures
Statecraft requires great wisdom on the part of political leaders and political advisors so that a society's alliance endures. In Israel's case, political leaders must consider, then resolve, several pressing issues, such as: how Israel will build its people and lands in the face of ethnic differences; what measurements Israeli leaders will employ in order to ascertain Israel's success and failure (i.e., economic wealth? Military supremacy over hostile regional states? Moral imperatives to which other entities must acquiesce?), etc.
Open Dialogue as a Primary Function Within Allied Israel
Once the primary function of an institutionalized, allied Israeli government became established (those open channels of dialogue among its allied peoples during crises of heated dispute), less pressing matters, whatever they prove to be, would become secondary issues. A strong economy would certainly become a strong candidate for a secondary issue. For Israel, a strong economy can perhaps be more easily attained than popularly believed. According to Globes' year 2001 report, Israel's Gross Domestic Product stood at $13,330.00. Syria produced $3,280.00, Egypt $ 3,520 and Turkey $5,890.00. According to NASDAQ analysts, Israel is technologically poised to dominate the debuting WI-FI industry in 2004.
Israel's Automatically Unifying Force
Before Israel becomes an economic force to be reckoned with, it has to make sure that the country doesn't collapse of its own cultural weight. Israel's multitude of Jews hail from different parts of the world, with vastly different world-views and cultural experiences. Therefore, Israel's unification must lie with a common denominator that overrides uncontrollably varied experiences unique to former localities and ways of life.
A unified Israel's definition of desired domestic accomplishments also must speak in a language broad enough so that her diverse peoples can build trust-based working relationships with one another, relationships that imply mutually agreed-upon terms of responsibility and liability. Quite naturally, the language of such a social contract must rest on a common value system and knowledge base. That's simple to say, complex but necessary to achieve.
Luckily for Israel, a 2,500-year old solution exists in the Torah, Judaism's sacred text of history and nascent law. It is what Rabbi Lau alluded to in his recent remarks.
Jewish leadership can guide and direct its peoples with the historically-enduring tool of Toraitic laws of adjudication, a thread binding our peoples because it is woven through the fabric of our common history and common exile among the nations.
A Divine Authority leads the Torah's laws of self-determining statehood. Those laws encompass economic enterprise and economic policies that demand nominal charitable contributions and courts of law. These laws have always been applicable to all Jews, regardless of individual adherence to Toraitic law, and to non-Jewish residents in Israel. This reality exists because the Torah's form of government does not stand upon religious faith, but upon justice. The commitment to ensure the sanctity of Toraitic law requires tremendous moral strength. The issues, then, become:
1. Who is morally suitable to apply these laws on a judicial basis; and
2. How do they develop a government whose sole purpose rests upon establishing dialogue among its allied peoples?
Political Science Reality and Torah-True Israel
Torah-true leadership places constitutional limits (these exist in the body of halacha, Jewish law) upon public servants by limiting how legislation can be imposed upon its governed populations. Any government institution or political party with an agenda that establishes laws not based upon interpreting the intent of the Torah/Constitution commits an illegal seizure of power and a revolution against the constitutional authority of the Torah.
Historic precedent proves this to be true. When King Saul became the government rather than an agent of the government, his kingship deteriorated. A Jewish king does not constitute the head of government. The institutional body that interprets the intent of the Constitution is the Head of State and the king functions as an agent of the State. The king's function is to enforce the laws that a judicial legislature interprets. A law has no legal mandate if it lacks precedent, a logical basis with the Constitution (Toraitic and otherwise).
Achieving Priorities
This rigorous discipline of interpreting the Constitution (based on Toraitic Law, in Israel's case) enables the judicial legislature to employ the same logical techniques for applying diplomacy among Israel's allied, heterogeneous population. The goal of that Toraitic Constitution is for disparate groups among our allied peoples to enjoy equal opportunities to talk with, rather than at, one another. Once a stable Israeli government supplies a forum in which heterogeneous populations can communicate and understand the intents and/or perspectives of differing and opposing populations, we can then focus upon other secondary issues such as foreign policy.
If You Can't Comply With the State of Israel, You Will Not Benefit From It
As a nation among the Community of Nations, Israel possesses a mandate that determines the parameters of the Jewish State. Arabs and any other non-Jews who desire to live within the borders of the State and enjoy the benefits of Israeli citizenship must accept the obligation of also making a solemn alliance with the constitutional authority of the state (resident alien, or ger toshav in Hebrew). That alliance is known as the Seven Noachide Commandments (Sheva Mitzvot B'nai Noach). Refusal to accept the Noachide obligations of Israel's government informs the king to remove these illegal populations from the lands of Israel. Arabs and other non-Jews who accept the alliance of Noach with the Zionist state may volunteer to serve in the army, and enjoy the benefits of citizenship. Private beliefs cannot be legislated away, and a Toraitic allowance is made for such differences. Outside the Muslim or any other non-Jewish home in Israel, the only legitimate non-Jewish lifestyle is compliance with Sheva Mitzvot B'nai Noach.
Zionism does not recognize the principal of separation of state and religion. Zionism does not deny the existence of belief in foreign gods among the nations and therefore isn't occupied with validating or denying other belief systems. However, the Creator has a sworn covenant with His people, the Jews, to establish justice in our lands. Torah law is not a merely a belief system. Our covenant/brit with the Creator does not depend on our personal beliefs in the event that we lose our awareness of Him. It depends on the commandment He gave for acquiescence to Torah law, whether or not we like it, whether or not we want to comply.
The obligation and the measure of Zionist statecraft therefore rest upon establishing justice/diplomacy among our allied peoples, the measure of Israel's wisdom. By this measure alone shall Israel stand among the community of nations. Other forms of statecraft fall in the category of non-Jewish political philosophy.
Allied Israel Chai!
Psalm 105:8-15 specifies that G-d deeds Israel to the Jews. For anyone who unquestioningly accepted King David's premise and poetry, who never had it expunged from their liturgy, it's a hypocritical development after two thousand of years of singing Psalms in church to suddenly dispute Jewish claims to the Land of Israel. It is unconscionable to support Israel's detractors as she strives to protect her borders.
An allied Israel working with the consensus of its disparate residents will not be threatened with annihilation from within or without. An allied Israel will be able to defend its integrity swiftly and rationally. As King David sang in Psalm 129:4-5, "G-d will cut the ropes of the wicked / Let them be ashamed and turn back, all who hate Zion." As Israel considers the outcomes of the raging genocide upon Israel's Jews, the recent B'Sheva Conference and the candidacy of Moshe Feiglin, an Allied Israel is a matter of increasing urgency.
The Jewish nation is terribly divided against itself (a fact evidenced by emigration statistics, spats between secularists and religious Jews, and between various groups of religious Jews, and six economically crippling Histadrut strikes in the past eighteen months). As a body, it is threatened by the lack of a solution to the lingering and explosive Genocidal War on Israeli Jews, and an international boycott. Pressures upon Israel's governing body and military from the World Court, the UN, and international boycotts are further deteriorating the direction of the Knesset and the military and thus, local morale.
Our multicultural people, who vary widely in their worldviews, are presently confused as to the role of Israel's government, and the government seems rather unstable given the five and counting no-confidence votes of March 2004. Israel is haunted by the need for a defense from hostile, genocidal residents and hostile, genocidal neighboring countries, international censure, an ongoing debate regarding a Jewish versus secularly-accented body of law, etc.
Israel needs to re-engineer itself, to be reborn as a functional, healthy society. As former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau announced at the March 15-17 2004 Jerusalem Conference, and at a Labor party meeting three years ago, "?after 55 years, the Knesset has not, to this day, found the time to take five days and discuss what exactly this Jewish State we have created is meant to be . The words 'Jewish State' are mentioned 22 times in Israel's Declaration of Independence - not "State of the Jews", but rather "Jewish State" - and yet the Knesset has never found time to define just what that means."
Future Stability for Israel Depends on Capable Leadership and a Productive Internal Alliance
Given all that, future stability for our State depends upon capable leadership and the alliance that it must cultivate among Israel's citizens. Statecraft of this nature, for the tiny Jewish homeland, requires an intra-Jewish diplomacy of dialogue rather than the baffling, counterproductive, behind-closed-doors policies that apparently reign today (Prime Minister Sharon's hotly contested Unilateral Withdrawal Plan is but one example of such policies). Israelis want to stand up for themselves, and perhaps they would if they could only determine who they are and what they want as a body politic.
Open communication channels would require that the citizens of the Jewish State assume upon themselves the obligations of sharing an alliance with all inhabitants of the land: defense from hostile, genocidal residents and hostile, genocidal neighboring countries, international censure, a Jewishly versus secularly accented body of law, etc. Peoples not willing to accept the responsibilities of this alliance would consequently lose political or economic rights. It thus would not be in the interests of disagreeable or murderous foreigners to stay or to live in Israel for long. Israel would retaliate against internal and external dissent in order to protect the majority members of its consensual society. An illustration of this principle is to think of how unwise it is to commit mass murder and mayhem on the US and its allies. The US and her allies track the whereabouts of resident enemies, limiting access to sensitive locations and information, and imprisoning, deporting or executing malcontents who threaten the safety and freedoms of law-abiding citizens.
Alliances Determine a Society's Agenda and its Domestic Ethical Containment Force
The first task of any new, democratic government is to form an alliance with the diverse, possibly dispersed peoples it will govern. Then the "led" members of that society will be able to understand and to approve of the government's agenda. The consensus can also give rise to understandings that will be protected on the formative, defining and public documents of the society, and to its desired domestic accomplishments.
As the alliance between the governing body and the governed public develops, a moral code or domestic ethical containment force is inevitably and simultaneously established (within those protective documents). The moral borders of an established society would naturally and simultaneously rest on the cultural alliance(s) of the people within that society. With the alliance thus accomplished and the issues settled, statecraft can commence. It would make a good case scenario for beleaguered Israel.
Statecraft Commences and Endures
Statecraft requires great wisdom on the part of political leaders and political advisors so that a society's alliance endures. In Israel's case, political leaders must consider, then resolve, several pressing issues, such as: how Israel will build its people and lands in the face of ethnic differences; what measurements Israeli leaders will employ in order to ascertain Israel's success and failure (i.e., economic wealth? Military supremacy over hostile regional states? Moral imperatives to which other entities must acquiesce?), etc.
Open Dialogue as a Primary Function Within Allied Israel
Once the primary function of an institutionalized, allied Israeli government became established (those open channels of dialogue among its allied peoples during crises of heated dispute), less pressing matters, whatever they prove to be, would become secondary issues. A strong economy would certainly become a strong candidate for a secondary issue. For Israel, a strong economy can perhaps be more easily attained than popularly believed. According to Globes' year 2001 report, Israel's Gross Domestic Product stood at $13,330.00. Syria produced $3,280.00, Egypt $ 3,520 and Turkey $5,890.00. According to NASDAQ analysts, Israel is technologically poised to dominate the debuting WI-FI industry in 2004.
Israel's Automatically Unifying Force
Before Israel becomes an economic force to be reckoned with, it has to make sure that the country doesn't collapse of its own cultural weight. Israel's multitude of Jews hail from different parts of the world, with vastly different world-views and cultural experiences. Therefore, Israel's unification must lie with a common denominator that overrides uncontrollably varied experiences unique to former localities and ways of life.
A unified Israel's definition of desired domestic accomplishments also must speak in a language broad enough so that her diverse peoples can build trust-based working relationships with one another, relationships that imply mutually agreed-upon terms of responsibility and liability. Quite naturally, the language of such a social contract must rest on a common value system and knowledge base. That's simple to say, complex but necessary to achieve.
Luckily for Israel, a 2,500-year old solution exists in the Torah, Judaism's sacred text of history and nascent law. It is what Rabbi Lau alluded to in his recent remarks.
Jewish leadership can guide and direct its peoples with the historically-enduring tool of Toraitic laws of adjudication, a thread binding our peoples because it is woven through the fabric of our common history and common exile among the nations.
A Divine Authority leads the Torah's laws of self-determining statehood. Those laws encompass economic enterprise and economic policies that demand nominal charitable contributions and courts of law. These laws have always been applicable to all Jews, regardless of individual adherence to Toraitic law, and to non-Jewish residents in Israel. This reality exists because the Torah's form of government does not stand upon religious faith, but upon justice. The commitment to ensure the sanctity of Toraitic law requires tremendous moral strength. The issues, then, become:
1. Who is morally suitable to apply these laws on a judicial basis; and
2. How do they develop a government whose sole purpose rests upon establishing dialogue among its allied peoples?
Political Science Reality and Torah-True Israel
Torah-true leadership places constitutional limits (these exist in the body of halacha, Jewish law) upon public servants by limiting how legislation can be imposed upon its governed populations. Any government institution or political party with an agenda that establishes laws not based upon interpreting the intent of the Torah/Constitution commits an illegal seizure of power and a revolution against the constitutional authority of the Torah.
Historic precedent proves this to be true. When King Saul became the government rather than an agent of the government, his kingship deteriorated. A Jewish king does not constitute the head of government. The institutional body that interprets the intent of the Constitution is the Head of State and the king functions as an agent of the State. The king's function is to enforce the laws that a judicial legislature interprets. A law has no legal mandate if it lacks precedent, a logical basis with the Constitution (Toraitic and otherwise).
Achieving Priorities
This rigorous discipline of interpreting the Constitution (based on Toraitic Law, in Israel's case) enables the judicial legislature to employ the same logical techniques for applying diplomacy among Israel's allied, heterogeneous population. The goal of that Toraitic Constitution is for disparate groups among our allied peoples to enjoy equal opportunities to talk with, rather than at, one another. Once a stable Israeli government supplies a forum in which heterogeneous populations can communicate and understand the intents and/or perspectives of differing and opposing populations, we can then focus upon other secondary issues such as foreign policy.
If You Can't Comply With the State of Israel, You Will Not Benefit From It
As a nation among the Community of Nations, Israel possesses a mandate that determines the parameters of the Jewish State. Arabs and any other non-Jews who desire to live within the borders of the State and enjoy the benefits of Israeli citizenship must accept the obligation of also making a solemn alliance with the constitutional authority of the state (resident alien, or ger toshav in Hebrew). That alliance is known as the Seven Noachide Commandments (Sheva Mitzvot B'nai Noach). Refusal to accept the Noachide obligations of Israel's government informs the king to remove these illegal populations from the lands of Israel. Arabs and other non-Jews who accept the alliance of Noach with the Zionist state may volunteer to serve in the army, and enjoy the benefits of citizenship. Private beliefs cannot be legislated away, and a Toraitic allowance is made for such differences. Outside the Muslim or any other non-Jewish home in Israel, the only legitimate non-Jewish lifestyle is compliance with Sheva Mitzvot B'nai Noach.
Zionism does not recognize the principal of separation of state and religion. Zionism does not deny the existence of belief in foreign gods among the nations and therefore isn't occupied with validating or denying other belief systems. However, the Creator has a sworn covenant with His people, the Jews, to establish justice in our lands. Torah law is not a merely a belief system. Our covenant/brit with the Creator does not depend on our personal beliefs in the event that we lose our awareness of Him. It depends on the commandment He gave for acquiescence to Torah law, whether or not we like it, whether or not we want to comply.
The obligation and the measure of Zionist statecraft therefore rest upon establishing justice/diplomacy among our allied peoples, the measure of Israel's wisdom. By this measure alone shall Israel stand among the community of nations. Other forms of statecraft fall in the category of non-Jewish political philosophy.
Allied Israel Chai!
Psalm 105:8-15 specifies that G-d deeds Israel to the Jews. For anyone who unquestioningly accepted King David's premise and poetry, who never had it expunged from their liturgy, it's a hypocritical development after two thousand of years of singing Psalms in church to suddenly dispute Jewish claims to the Land of Israel. It is unconscionable to support Israel's detractors as she strives to protect her borders.
An allied Israel working with the consensus of its disparate residents will not be threatened with annihilation from within or without. An allied Israel will be able to defend its integrity swiftly and rationally. As King David sang in Psalm 129:4-5, "G-d will cut the ropes of the wicked / Let them be ashamed and turn back, all who hate Zion." As Israel considers the outcomes of the raging genocide upon Israel's Jews, the recent B'Sheva Conference and the candidacy of Moshe Feiglin, an Allied Israel is a matter of increasing urgency.