As discussed in this column and my book The Assault on Judaism, we are in the midst of a rapidly expanding Western attempt to negate the idea of the Jewish state, and through it, the idea of Judaism. This attempt is layered, nuanced, and comes from friends as well as foes in non-obvious ways.
These realities were on display last week during the Senate confirmation hearing of Elise Stefanik as ambassador to the United Nations. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a highly-regarded mainstream Democrat, asked Stefanik if she believes that “Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank.” Anything other than a resounding “Yes” would have shaken the very core foundation on which the State of Israel was established.
Israel was founded based on a biblical right, which was incorporated into international law. Biblical stories didn’t take place in Tel Aviv or Herzliya (founded in 1909 and 1924, respectively); they took place in what has become internationally known as “the West Bank.”
The Israeli Left and Right are united in such a view but have disagreed over the years on how to reconcile this biblical right with other realities, such as the presence of a large Arab population, the Palestine Arabs’ own aspirations, and international pressure from the UN and its member states.
To state the obvious, one cannot claim that Jews do not have a biblical right to the West Bank, and yet do have a biblical right to Tel Aviv and Herzliya. Since that biblical right is what led to the international legal right, the Senator’s question inadvertently challenges Israel’s right to exist.
Revisionist history on steroids
Upon Stefanik answering “Yes,” Van Hollen, lectured the nominee that her view “was not held by the founders of the State of Israel who were secular Zionists, not religious Zionists.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
While tensions between the biblical right and practical considerations have existed throughout the years, even those who advocated for a territorial compromise never questioned the Jewish state’s biblical right.
David Ben-Gurion, the father of Israeli left-wing politics and Israel’s first prime minister, emphasized this biblical right in his testimony to the Peel Commission in 1936 – a British commission established to assess the situation in Palestine.
“The Bible is our mandate,” Ben-Gurion famously stated. Moreover, he argued that the biblical right is superior to the rights given to the Jewish nation by international institutions, rights which explicitly included, at the time, the entire West Bank.
The secular Zionist leader, who supported the 1947 partition proposal, never pivoted from that biblical right. He explained to Lord Peel: “Our right was not given in 1917 [Balfour Declaration] or in 1922 [League of Nations mandate to establish a Jewish homeland].” Those, according to Ben-Gurion, merely confirmed the Jews’ historic right to re-establish their national homeland.
Fast forward 90 years, and Sen. Van Hollen not only inadvertently questioned this right, he also stigmatized it. He compared Stefanik’s position to that of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir – elected leaders of the Israeli national-religious parties, who Van Hollen stunningly asked the Biden Administration to sanction.
President Trump reversed last week, a February 1, 2024, Biden executive order that gave the State and Treasury Departments a broad mandate to sanction Israeli Jews – an unprecedented act that contributed to the expansion of the Western assault on Judaism.
Van Hollen could have asked Stefanik if she believes Israel’s biblical right to the West Bank supersedes the Palestinian right to self-determination, as he put it, reflecting his own views on the topic. But he did the opposite. He even told Stefanik how surprised he was by her answer, and moreover, that he was “rarely surprised by answers in his office” (Stefanik reiterated her position both in their private meeting and in the public hearing). Her position coming as a “surprise” shows to what degree the senator’s ecosystem has shifted.
Indeed, the attempt to negate the idea of the Jewish state is becoming mainstream, and since October 7 has been spreading into increasing arenas. Sadly, it has also penetrated the US Congress.
In March 2024, Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, parroted accusations leveled at the Jewish nation in previous large-scale assaults on Judaism, from Persia to Germany: The Jewish state is “a pariah opposed by the rest of the world,” he insinuated.
At the same time that the existential right of the Jewish state is being dramatically eroded in Western consciousness, another right is rapidly rising.
Shift from ‘solution’ to ‘right’
The Palestinian issue has shifted from being discussed in the context of a “solution” to that of a “right” and, since October 7, an “unquestionable right.” So much so, that in his March 2024 speech, Sen. Schumer defined those who oppose the idea of a Palestinian state as “bigots.”
These developments affect much more than the fate of Judaism. For example, they impact the debate over “the Muslim right to Spain.”
Indeed, as discussed in previous articles, the Western assault on Judaism, does not only challenge the Judeo-Christian foundations of the United States, it is turning into a threat to US national security and to global stability.
Van Hollen and most of his Democrat colleagues are American patriots who deserve a great deal of gratitude for their service. However, they should think through the implications of their newly-adopted positions, stand up to the alarming Israel-bashing tidal wave in their circles, and become part of the defense of Judaism – not part of the assault.
The writer, author of a new book, The Assault on Judaism: The Existential Threat Is Coming from the West, is chairman of the Judaism 3.0 Think Tank and author of Judaism 3.0: Judaism’s Transformation to Zionism (Judaism-Zionism.com). His geopolitical articles can be accessed on the website: EuropeAndJerusalem.com.