Despite their relentless and obsessive, often antisemitic attacks, there is a kernel of truth in the far Right’s criticism of Israel. Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes have surely veered far into dangerous conspiracy theory territory. Yet the isolationist claim that Israel’s advocacy for American military intervention in the Middle East stems from a “siege mentality” is accurate, and Israel must transition toward a new and healthier paradigm.
Curt Mills, editor of The American Conservative magazine, was recently interviewed by The New York Times, where he summed up the Jewish State’s current worldview: “It is a perspective that says that Israel can only be secure by thrashing everybody in the neighborhood and breaking them into bits until they’re weak. It is a siege mentality.” According to Mills, Israeli military security is being undermined by Israeli psychological insecurity, and he’s actually correct about that.
The story of Passover, which we will be celebrating this week, encapsulates Israel’s national origin story and contains the roots of this psychological tension that the Jewish people are still grappling with 3,500 years later. At the same time, the Festival of Freedom contains a powerful lesson as to how to break an unhealthy national mentality.
After generations of bitter slavery in Egypt, Moses confronts Pharaoh and demands freedom for his people. As recounted in the Book of Exodus, Pharaoh stubbornly refuses, and so God unleashes ten dramatic plagues upon Egypt while “passing over” the homes of the Israelites.
The Jews escape, God miraculously parts the Red Sea, and the Egyptians are drowned in the waters. The Israelites emerge victoriously into the Sinai desert, where they celebrate the first Passover.
Rather than entering the Promised Land directly, however, the newly freed people struggle to adjust to life in the wilderness. Fearful of enemies and unnerved by their new surroundings, the Israelites are overwhelmed by anxiety. They display the symptoms of Stockholm syndrome, longing for captivity. “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt,” they announce (Numbers 14:4). Pining for the creature comforts of bondage, they cry out, “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for free” (Numbers 11:5).
What should have been a short journey across the Sinai desert takes 40 years, because, as Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook put it, “One can leave Egypt, yet Egypt remains within the person.” Egypt in Hebrew is known as “Mitzrayim,” meaning narrowness or constriction, and Rav Kook explained that the Israelites needed to shed their small-minded slave mentality in order to achieve the fullness of their freedom before entering the Land of Israel.
Jewish leaders originally rejected Zionism
In a fascinating reminder that history repeats itself, the same pattern occurred when Jews began slowly returning to Israel in the modern era. Although hard to imagine in hindsight, most Jewish leaders initially rejected Zionism, preferring to remain in the Diaspora. Reform leaders declared, “Berlin is our Jerusalem,” while Orthodox rabbis preferred religious life in exile over a potentially secular existence in what was then known as Palestine.
Rav Kook, who immigrated from Europe with the Second Aliyah in 1904, identified the same emotional confinement in his own generation that he recognized in the Jews of the Exodus. He lamented about his contemporaries, that “the spirit of the nation is subjugated under the influence of exile.”
He called upon his generation to overcome their fear in favor of a vision of redemption that was developing slowly and gradually, not suddenly or miraculously. Unlike nearly all of his rabbinic colleagues, Rav Kook saw that the Jewish people first had to build a strong physical body, and only when it was secure enough could it be infused with a healthy spirit.
Just as the generation that left Egypt had to shed its slave mentality to inherit the land and the first pioneering Zionists had to courageously emerge from the constraints of exile, we must now emerge from our siege mentality to embrace our national destiny.
For far too long, the IDF’s posture focused on deterrence, and our policy makers adopted an apologetic stance, especially regarding the Palestinian conflict. To paraphrase Rav Kook, we had left exile, but our exile mentality remained in us.
As I argue in my new book, Universal Zionism, October 7, 2023, exposed the disastrous repercussions of our siege mentality. But since then, Israel has done remarkably, thank God, regained its security and emerged as a roaring lion, and must adapt to our new position in the world.
We are now at a critical moment, and the stakes could not be higher in the war with Iran. The State of Israel is fighting alongside the US, demonstrating that Israel is the only capable ally of the global superpower in the civilizational battle of good over evil. Israel can emerge from the battlefield with a mission mentality, finally poised to fulfill our ancient role as a light unto the nations.
The very last paragraph of Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State contains a remarkable description of his ultimate vision for the Zionist movement, and where we are at today: “The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.”
The bravery of the IDF soldiers and the resilience of the Israeli people can no longer be understood merely as a fight for our own security. The world is being “freed by our liberty” as we are engaged in the epic battle to save western civilization “for the good of humanity.”
This Passover is the season for Israel to finally replace our siege mentality with a mission mentality, not because it is unpopular on the American right, but because it is no longer fitting for Am Hanetzach, the eternal nation.
The writer is the founder of Israel365.com and the author of Universal Zionism: The Movement for Israel & the Nations.