Zionist Argument: Permission of the Nations

Claim: The oaths do not apply to the State of Israel, since it was founded with the UN’s permission.

Facts:

1) One of the oaths is that the Jewish people must not go up to Eretz Yisroel as a wall. There is a disagreement among the commentators as to whether this oath applies to any mass immigration, or only to armed conquest. Even those (such as the Avnei Nezer and the Ohr Somayach) who say that only conquest is prohibited, but mass immigration with permission from the ruling power, such as the Turks or the British, is permitted, never discussed the idea of founding a sovereign state. Neither did the British, at that point in time. Founding a sovereign state means effectively ending the exile, and is a violation of the oath against “forcing the end,” one of the additional oaths listed in the Gemara.

2) The nation that permits immigration has to be the nation ruling the land, not other nations. The two-thirds majority of the UN who voted for a Jewish state in November 1947 did not include Britain, who ruled the land at that time. So according to the Avnei Nezer and Ohr Somayach, the UN resolution would have been halachically ineffective even to permit immigration, much less a state.

3) The State of Israel came into being only through a war; the Israelis had to fight for every inch of the land. That is definitely “with a strong hand” according to all opinions. It makes no difference who fired the first shot. The land was vacated by the British and left ownerless to whoever would succeed in taking it. Neither the British nor the UN made any effort to implement partition. Competing for an ownerless piece of land with military force is no different from invading a piece of land with military force.

4) The State of Israel conquered many areas not allotted to them by the UN. The partition plan called for a Jewish state in 55% of Palestine but at the end of the war in 1949, the Israelis controlled 78%, including Jerusalem, which was supposed to have been an international city. In 1967 they conquered the remaining 22% and much more.