When Begin opened the floodgates, the Left had nothing to do but become ever more radical. So in a right-left-right-left movement – the right hand dismantling and the left hand pushing and pulling – Zionism was pushed closer and closer to the edge of the abyss.
In truth, when God is outside the game, this is the only possible outcome. We can consider ourselves great heroes, real “killers” who will always defeat the entire world. But there is a limit to how much the lone sheep can continue to live surrounded by all the wolves.
Here’s something much more important: When there was (Zionist) spirit, the pre-State Palmach fighter thought – correctly – that he would always prevail. But when Zionism melted and God remained outside, the only thing that brings the people out into the streets is the lower price of Israeli chocolate in London! When no alternative leadership holds up a vision of destiny, the only thing the public can expect from the leadership is to calm the situation at any price; to sustain its connection to the world; to preserve normalcy; and to neutralize any landmines that may smear our uniqueness right back into our faces. Simply put, the public expects its leaders to continually retreat from any possible battlefront – Ulpana Hill, security prisoners, Ahmadinejad, the Shalit deal. Without destiny, all that is left is to retreat to the constantly shrinking remnants of existence.
Now we have Israel’s broadest coalition ever searching for meaning. It wants maximum governability and minimum destiny, maximum economy and security and minimum international legitimacy.
The problem is much bigger than leaders on the Right; it is the missing spirit. We must progress from the Zionism of existence to the Zionism of destiny, from Zionism of Holocaust memorial (Yad Vashem) to Zionism of the Temple.