Recent polls show yet again that the vast majority of Israeli society is traditional, holds from its religious faith and shies away from coercion. Thus, hasn’t the time come for our national leadership to express the desires of the large Jewish majority?
Isn’t it time to again emphasize Jewish education and family? To make sure that every child in Israel is familiar with his or her heritage? Hasn’t the time come to restore the value of loyalty?
Is it appropriate to draw the justification for our national existence in the Land of Israel from the Holocaust alone? Isn’t there a positive reason for the existence of a Jewish state on the globe?
The great danger that threatens us, the danger that is even graver than the Iranian nuclear menace, is the loss of legitimacy. We “earned” the question mark over our right to exist as a Jewish state after long years of evading the need to cope with the challenge of a Jewish state.
We thought that if we handed over the very heart of our Holy Land, the world would let us be and we would be able to leave our identity behind and just be a “normal” nation watching reality TV at home.
This process exacted a terrible price from us. We must recognize the mistakes that were made thus far and refrain from establishing yet another terror state on the border of central Israel.
God did not miraculously safeguard His people for 3,000 years, bringing us back to our land after 2,000 years of exile, only to establish yet another Western province on the plot of land that the Palestinians might one day be kind enough to relinquish to us.
The answer to the essence of our existence is not in their hands, but rather in ours. This is not about them. It’s about us.
Let us focus on building a free Jewish country, a righteous, prosperous society premised on the morality of our prophets. We must build a state that fills its citizens with a sense of belonging and pride, one that serves as a model for the entire world.
This column, which originally appeared in Ynet, was translated from the Hebrew.