Carlson, Huckabee and the Solution to the Conflict

During his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee struggled to define his beliefs about the Jewish people’s Biblical right to the land known today as Israel. Is it a religious right, an ethnic right, or is it based on the recognition of other nations?

The Torah gives us the answer to this question. G-d gave the land to the Jewish people during a certain period of history, and He will one day give it to them again, at the time when He sees fit. It’s not for us as Jews to decide when that time is; the Talmud teaches that G-d expressly forbade us to try to regain our land by force. Jews are allowed to live there peacefully, with the permission of the nation ruling the land, but we are not allowed to take it over and make it into a state for Jews. Readers of my book and this site know that such was the position of Jews everywhere for centuries. Throughout the era of Zionism, as well as for centuries prior to Zionism, rabbis from all Jewish communities rejected the idea of Jews forcing their way out of exile. It was always believed that exile was imposed on the Jews by G-d, and therefore only G-d could restore them to their land.

To this day, the struggle between religious Jews and Zionists goes on. The traditionally Orthodox Jews who make up 20% of the State of Israel’s population are not interested in a Jewish state with an army and politicians. Their goal in living there is simply to study and practice Judaism on the holy soil. That is why they steadfastly refuse to serve in the IDF, and Israeli politicians are at a loss for how to force them to do so. If it someday becomes impossible for them to continue avoiding the draft, they would certainly prefer to leave the land and live in other countries.

The irony of Zionism is that its non-religious supporters claim that Jews have a right to the land, based on a book that they don’t believe in, given by a G-d they don’t believe in, while most Jews who actually believe in G-d and His book teach the opposite: that only a clear act of G-d – not a humanly initiated movement – can determine their right to the land. Curiously, Bible-believing Christians like Huckabee have adopted the view of the non-believing Jews.

The Torah’s promise in Genesis 12:3 that G-d will bless those who bless the children of Abraham certainly applies for all time, but it has nothing to do with supporting any sovereign state. Rather, it means that non-Jews should befriend Jews and welcome Jews into their countries. The Muslim lands have earned this blessing throughout the centuries as they welcomed the Sephardic Jews, who fled persecution in other parts of the world. 

Of course, had Huckabee wanted, he could have made a more solid argument. His reliance on the Bible allowed Carlson to poke holes in his ideology (by asking questions such as “who says these are the same Jews?” and “what about the land until the Euphrates that the Bible also promises to the Jews?”). But what if Huckabee had said, forget the Bible. There are 16 million people alive today known as the Jews. True, there are some borderline cases like Reform converts, and Jews who converted to another religion (both brought up by Carlson). But in 99% of cases, everyone can agree on who is a Jew today. Now, the Jews, like all people in the world, have a right to live in peace and security. If they were all living peacefully in America or Europe, it would be hard to argue that they have the right to go and take away Palestine from the Palestinians. Some Zionist extremists, on both the Jewish and Christian sides, might say that they have that right, but that would not resonate with most of the world, nor would it be true according to traditional Judaism. However, currently 7.2 million Jews already live in the State of Israel. If you say the country should belong to the Palestinians with the Jews as a minority, the Palestinians may not tolerate them there.

This would have deflected Carlson’s constant attempts to ask if others such as the British deserve to have their own country, as opposed to being outnumbered by immigrants. The answer is simple: the British could stay on safely as a minority, because the immigrants have no interest in expelling or killing ethnic British people. But the Palestinians have a charter saying that only Jews who were there before “the invasion of Palestine” (i.e. 1881 or 1917) are legitimately Palestinian. Who is to say they would allow the rest to stay on?

With this argument available, why indeed do so many defenders of Zionism pursue the theme that “the Bible says so” or “the Jews have lived in Israel since the time of Abraham”? Probably the answer is that they don’t want to advocate for Israel using what is essentially a refugee argument. “The Israeli Jews have nowhere else to go, so have pity on them.” The implication would be that the moment an alternative solution can be found, the problem is solved. Just as Zionists always say about the Palestinians, “Why don’t their fellow Arab countries just take them in?” – people would say about the Jews, “Why can’t they find places to live in America and Europe?” Both sides in this conflict don’t want to step down under any circumstances, so they take pains to portray themselves as the rightful owners of the land.

As a Jew, I can’t speak for Palestinians. But Jews are equipped to be a wandering people when necessary. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in his commentary on the Torah, gives this interpretation of why the wooden poles were never to be removed from the Ark of the Covenant: “The poles of the ark symbolize, on the physical plane, the ubiquitous mission of the ark and what it housed–to be carried beyond its place to wherever circumstances demanded.  The commandment: “the poles shall not be removed” embodied the eternal message that the Torah is not parochial, restricted to the particular country where the Temple is situated.  Independence of place is an essential characteristic of the Torah.  This is reflected in the fact that this prohibition of removing the poles from the ark applies only to the ark, but not to other appurtenances, to the table, the lampstand etc.  The latter, symbolizing Israel’s material and spiritual fulfillment, are inextricably linked to the land of Israel.  But this is not the case with the Torah.” Wherever the Jews live, the Torah is their homeland and they maintain their national identity.

If it turns out that the Israeli Jews and the Palestinians cannot occupy the same land, then it befits the Jews, as the people of the Torah and as a light to the nations, to step down and search for an alternative solution. Otherwise, this conflict may continue forever, and that won’t benefit either side.