The Maharsha: does he permit an independent state?

Maharsha on Kesubos 111a, commenting on the three oaths:

Certainly every Jew is permitted to go up to Eretz Yisroel, but they must not go up with a strong hand and to build for themselves the walls of Jerusalem. When Nechemiah said, “Let us build the walls of the city and no longer be a shame” (Nechemiah 2:17), it was with the king’s permission, as it is written (2:8). But Toviah, who asked Nechemiah regarding the building of the wall, “Are you rebelling against the king?” did not realize that it was being done with the king’s permission.

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, in his booklet Shelo Yaalu B’chomah, containing 13 arguments for how, in his opinion, the State of Israel escapes the prohibition of the three oaths, lists permission of the nations as argument #1, and lists the Maharsha as one of those espousing it. To be sure, there have been many rabbinic commentaries over the ages who stated that the oath only forbids conquest, not peaceful immigration with permission from the ruling power. But Rabbi Aviner is claiming that these sources would permit an independent state as well.

He does not address the question of whose permission would be necessary. Perhaps permission works only when granted by the ruling power (e.g. Persia, which ruled Eretz Yisroel in Nechemiah’s time), not in a 1947-like situation where permission was granted by the UN, who did not rule anything. But let’s ignore that for now.

Let’s focus on the leap from immigration to independent state. It’s quite possible that those who permit peaceful immigration do so because that does not depart from the parameters of exile. Just as 3 million Jews could live in Poland, or 5 million Jews could live in the United States, but still be completely in exile, so too millions of Jews could come to Eretz Yisroel under the Ottoman or British empires and still be in exile. Independence is a different story; that would be dechikas haketz – forcing the end of exile.

Back to the Maharsha: Rabbi Aviner might argue that the Maharsha is saying that whatever the oath prohibits, one may do with permission from the king. Thus if the oath prohibited building the walls of Jerusalem, yet with the king’s permission it was allowed to do so, it follows that if the oath (that is, the other oath of dechikas haketz) prohibits an independent state, then with the king’s permission it would be allowed to found one.

The flaw in this reasoning is that independence from the king is the very thing that the oath of dechikas haketz prohibits. So, building a defensive wall with permission from the king is by definition permitted because it doesn’t go against the oath; the Jews are building it as subjects of the king. But declaring an independent state with permission from the king, even if such a thing had ever happened, would definitely be a violation of the oath.