I vote for a government that can ensure safety in #Israel. The main idea that drives me is unity of the nation, but unity can exist only with those who are alive, not with those who have died. #IsraElex4

Indifference to the #Elections2021. If we weren’t surrounded by enemies, awaiting our weakness to attack, there would be no point in having elections. If not for national security, we could just sleep. The elections should be taken seriously, without succumbing to despair. It’s time to wake up.
From Twitter, 3/14/21

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My new article on Linkedin “Should We Resist “Election Fatigue”?”

On March 23, Israelis will go to the polls for the fourth time in less than two years. There is a saying in Israel that one who votes influences (one’s future and the future of the country). Voter turnout in Israel is similar to that to other democratic countries, but this time, the fourth election in less than two years, many are saying they will pass on the chance to influence. People are fed up, disillusioned, and don’t believe in the system anymore. I think it’s fair to say that people are experiencing what we might call “election fatigue.”

The unity of the nation is, of course, the only value that I see as important. If we have unity, we will resolve all other problems and carry out our obligation as a Jewish nation. However, you can only unite with the living, not with the dead. Therefore, currently, my one and only question when I cast my vote is who will do the best job of protecting Israel from its enemies.

I understand them. I, too, can feel this apathy creeping in. Nevertheless, I think we should not succumb to it. Israel is unlike any other country. There are many issues to resolve here: poverty, inequality, high cost of living, lack of opportunities to the disadvantaged, social rifts around every corner, and countless other problems. However, we will not be able to resolve any of them if we don’t have a country where we can work on them. And because we are under a constant threat of destruction, to me, the sole criterion for choosing who to vote for is security. Israel’s prime minister must be someone who can secure Israel’s existence, and everything else, completely everything, comes next.

The unity of the nation is, of course, the only value that I see as important. If we have unity, we will resolve all other problems and carry out our obligation as a Jewish nation. However, you can only unite with the living, not with the dead. Therefore, currently, my one and only question when I cast my vote is who will do the best job of protecting Israel from its enemies.

I am not saying this from a political perspective whatsoever, but from a spiritual one. In order to perform its role in the world, in order for Israel to set an example of unity and be a light unto nations, it must first of all exist, and second, it must exist in security so it can focus on building unity above the incalculable rifts in the Israeli society. This is why I attribute such importance to security, and this is why it is a spiritual consideration rather than a political one.

Politics aside, I think it is time for the people of Israel to start being what the people of Israel should be—to fulfill its obligation to the world, unite, and set an example of rising above all differences. The ingathering of the exiles has already happened on the physical level. Jews immigrated to the State of Israel from all over the world. Still, internally, we have remained apart. Now we must perform our spiritual task and turn the exiles into one nation, a symbol of union above division. This will be the realization of our vocation, our gift to the world, the best, and indeed only guarantee to our safety and prosperity.
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My new article on Linkedin “The Benefit in the ICC’s “Unbiased” Investigation against Israel”

Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor in the investigation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) into possible “war crimes” against Israel, promised that the investigation “will be conducted independently, impartially and objectively, without fear or favor.” Right. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out, the ICC, which was established to prevent atrocities like the Holocaust from happening again, is now coming after the Jewish state. Instead of genuine impartiality, “It turns a blind eye to Iran, Syria and the other dictatorships that are committing real war crimes left and right,” said Netanyahu. As always, the easiest way to expose antisemitism is to look for double standards, and in this case, it couldn’t be more patent.

If we want to win the world’s favor, we have to stop treating each other with such guile and odium. We have to stop hating one another or the world will not stop hating us.

Yet, anyone who knows me, or who has read my books, The Jewish Choice, and Like a Bundle of Reeds, will not be surprised if I express no grievances against antisemites or the existence of antisemitism. In fact, I fully understand where it is coming from and I treat it as a natural phenomenon and a call to action rather than as an unwarranted accusation against my people.

I am not in the least surprised that the world judges us by a different standard than it judges the rest of the nations. They expect something different from us and judge accordingly. We may state that we are the same as everyone else, that we are no different from any other nation, but no one believes this declaration, and deep down, neither do we.

Instead of complaining about the world’s double standard against the Jews, we should see it as both a compliment and a challenge. They expect us to be more righteous than everyone else, more ethical than everyone else, and when we fail their test, they accuse us of crimes against humanity.

We try to be righteous and ethical but the world does not believe us. It is wrong, of course; no army is more careful with human rights violations than the Israeli army, but no one believes us, and for a good reason: This ethical conduct is unreliable for a very simple reason—the way we treat each other. We first have to learn how to relate to one another, and then the world will listen to our arguments about being virtuous. They see in our treatment of each other a testimony to our wickedness, and they will not believe a word we say in court before we act out who we profess to be.

Let me ask you this: Would you trust someone who you knew was mean to his own brother, stole from his own sister, framed his own parents in order to put his hands on their money and property, and then told you he’s a good person? No, you wouldn’t, and rightly so. This is how the world sees us Jews—as a band of warmongers stealing from each other, cheating on each other, betraying one another, while pretending to be harmless and innocent. In their eyes, we are guilty before the trial at the ICC even started, and it makes no difference what we will say in our defense.

If we want to win the world’s favor, we have to stop treating each other with such guile and odium. We have to stop hating one another or the world will not stop hating us.

They know we are smart; they know we are able; and they know what we have contributed to the world. However, they also know that they cannot trust us because they see how we treat one another. If we want fair treatment anywhere, we must start by doing so among ourselves, and then we will begin to see the world changing its approach toward us.

For more on this topic, read my books The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord, and Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour.
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Comment: On the second Israeli TV channel there was a story about a charity canteen that opened in Tel Aviv.

The number of their clients increased by almost 70%. These are new people who come there for a free lunch. And these people feel very uncomfortable. They are the former waiters, former El Al flight attendants, a real mix of different kinds of people. There are a lot of young people, boys and girls. They do not look up so as not to see each other. They come up, get lunch, and carefully ask: “How much does it cost?” They learn that it costs nothing and step aside.

The feeling of shame was conveyed very strongly.

My Response: Shame is the most burning feeling. Stronger than any pain. Even sometimes stronger than death.

Question: Do you need to rise above this feeling when you go to such a place?

Answer: The point is that either you want to justify this feeling of shame: “I don’t care, everything is so, and I am like that,” and so on. That is, you can somehow chat about it at the everyday level, at the level of our world.

But, in principle, this is the most terrible feeling. Because the feeling of shame is actually a feeling of annulling a person in you. That is, you are really nothing and nobody.

We do not even understand to what extent we must remove what is called “I” from ourselves and leave only the animal shell from this. And the animal is not ashamed.

It is, of course, very difficult. And I do not think that humanity will correct itself based on this, although this is the most serious level of correction. I think that after all, we will reveal the path of light to people and not the path of suffering.

Question: Is this the path of real suffering?

Answer: This is the path of real suffering, because in fact, if a person is brought to a very serious feeling of shame, he will only pray to die. “Why did I live to see this ?!” I would like to just cease to exist.

Question: What do we do with this state?

Answer: We only need to reveal our purpose, that this is the highest governance, the system is so arranged and it causes such feelings of shame in us so that we rise above our “I,” so they would not annul it, but rise above it.

Question: Can you say how to rise above my “I,” which cries out, is ashamed, as it is said: “Death is better than this kind of life”? How do we rise above this “I,” above this shame?

Answer: With a good attitude toward people. This shame is designed to make us lose our temper.

Question: Then tell me, how can I not be ashamed? In difficult situations, what should I do?

Answer: You cannot be ashamed only in two cases: either you lose your human appearance and become an animal, that is: “Oh, I don’t care! I don’t care about anything!” In general, when you sort of annihilate everything that is outside of you. When you annul society, the whole environment, then you have no shame. You cancel it, so what are you ashamed of?

Or, when you annul yourself in relation to society and say: “I am worth nothing. I am ready to do everything for the sake of society, to belong to the society in everything! My “I” is nothing, only “we” exist!” And then shame also disappears.
This second option is preferable. But there are also higher ones.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/2/20

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In the News (AssociatedPress): “The International Criminal Court said Friday that its jurisdiction extends to territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, potentially clearing the way for its chief prosecutor to open a war crimes probe into Israeli military actions. …

“The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said in 2019 that there was a “reasonable basis” to open a war crimes probe into Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip as well as Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank. ”

Comment: This is happening while thousands of people are being killed in Syria and nobody knows what is happening in Lebanon. Look at what is going on in the world!

My Response: It is the one thing that people least understand, but what should be clear is that when it comes to demands, Jews are naturally held to a higher order of magnitude than everyone else, a higher spiritual standard. This is because based on their internality, their internal preparation, the Jews must behave in such a way that all this in the world does not happen at all.

But if it does happen, who is to blame? The Jews! There is no doubt about it! If something bad happens in the world, it is the Jews who are to blame! And we need to agree with this.

Question: Is this your statement?

Answer: This is my statement, because otherwise there is no answer for who we are. Eventually we need to explain who we are to ourselves by ourselves. Why do we constantly try to say that we are like others while others say, no you are not like everyone else? They tell us that they have a special demand from us, that we have a certain method of correction for humanity, but we don’t show it to anyone. We don’t implement it on ourselves, and eventually all the problems and all the suffering that humanity undergoes are actually your fault.

It isn’t just our fault, but it is the result of our disrespect to everything that happens around us. We need to appreciate and understand our powers, our role, our capabilities, and the dependence of all of humanity on us.

As a person who studies the general state of nature, providence, nature’s plan, and everything that the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about, the original internal methodology of the Jewish people and humanity as a whole, I would say that basically I agree with this approach. There is nowhere we can escape to. It is the law of nature! It is therefore pointless to resist it.

The Hague International Criminal Court? There will be a thousand other different courts and the consequences of their decisions will all be bleak for us.

Question: Are there only enemies around us and we need to defend ourselves?

Answer: We need to behave so that there will be only friends around us.

Comment: That would probably be preferable.

My Response: Not that it would be preferable, but that we must!

Comment: But in the meantime…

My Response: There is no meantime! We must begin to understand how nature is built, how the plan is built, how all of humanity is moving, how it is managed by one unique law, and what we have to do about it. We have the ability to influence everything!

Question: Does this mean that we are expected to start now?

Answer: Of course! We should have started thousands of years ago.

Question: And then this global mess would not have happened?

Answer: Yes. What is the purpose of all the suffering?

Comment: I know your answer.

My Response: There is nowhere we can escape from it! But I see how in response to what I write and try to explain everywhere I go, people brush me off. The Jews brush it off! We simply need to agree, to agree with the law of nature that has been right before our eyes for ages, which Kabbalists write about and not only Kabbalists.

There are no compromises in the laws of nature. We need to understand that we either operate as we should according to nature, or nature operates on us.

Question: What should we do so that everyone will be our friends?

Answer: We need to connect between us. By doing so we will not need to depend on anyone! No one needs to help us do so. We only need to establish the right connection between us. To come together all of us, to establish a normal state, that no one will want to run away from, to feel as a nation, to ascend above the divide and then everything will be fine!

Question: In the world?

Answer: Both for us and in the world.

Question: Are you speaking about this small point called Israel?

Answer: Of course, only about that. We don’t need to worry about anything else in the world. Everything in the world will happen as a result of what happens in this point, and it will also be so in The Hague International Criminal Court.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/23/19

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My new article on Linkedin “.Justice Is Blind, Until It Concerns Israel”

Israel is once again singled out as it was recently announced that it is threatened to be put on the docket 0f the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged war crimes. Meanwhile, the actions of blatantly oppressive regimes are being conveniently overlooked. So how can the “special treatment” toward the Jewish nation be explained if not by the motivation of antisemitism? We have to understand where the hatred comes from. It is not the result of what we do, but what we fail to deliver: unity to the world.

The international community looks at us through a magnifying glass. They hate us and want to see an end to the Israeli enterprise. Hostile organizations are rising up and multiplying against us day by day, and those who showed some restraint in the past, in line with the previous US administration’s friendly policies toward Israel, now feel more comfortable to act in step with the new White House.

We can continue fighting those who are not on our side, our instinctive reaction is to hate back, but this only confuses our vision and blurs our thoughts. We need to understand hatred from a deeper level, from an internal goal-oriented role demanded of the Jewish people.

We are the ones who fail to rise above the hatred and rejection between us, and the nations of the world reflect the state of our relations. In fact, the hostility against us is not because of our necessity for self-defense, but due to our lack of awareness of what the world demands from us: to connect and provide the world with the system for ultimate connection.

The nation of Israel was created differently from all other nations. Ours is a nation established to serve as a source for humanity’s future connection, for and of every nation in the world. It is why Israel was created and it is our destiny. Moreover, it is what the world subconsciously expects of us. They instinctively feel Jews know how to achieve peace and prosperity in the world and are not sharing it with them, so their complaint is manifested as antisemitism.

Understanding our background is therefore key to understanding that the Jewish people is not a nation in the common sense of the word, but a group of people from many different tribes and cultures who subscribed to an idea. This common vision was the fact that there is one force that governs the universe, the force of unity, the only power that can connect us above our differences.

We agreed to unite “as one man with one heart” at the foot of Mt. Sinai, and received the code of law for conducting a society whose members are united at heart. The task we were given is as valid now as it was then, and the world demands that we carry it out. Is Israel detrimental to the world? We are as long as we do no not overcome our deep divisions and get closer to each other. Thus, the only solution to end the animosity against the Jewish nation is becoming one unified people. As Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag wrote during WWII in his 1940 paper The Nation:

“It is also clear that the enormous effort that the rugged road ahead requires of us mandates unity that is as solid and as hard as steel from all parts of the nation, without exception. If we do not come out with united ranks toward the mighty forces that are standing on our way to harm us, we will find that our hope is doomed in advance.”

Therefore, if we can find this desire to unify within us and fan its flames, we will become a positive force that will permeate the world and hatred against us will vanish.
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My new article on Linkedin “What Politicians “Want””

When you examine how Republicans and Democrats treat Israel, it is easy to tell the difference: Republicans are palpably pro Israel, while Democrats give Israel a cold shoulder. We, in Israel, may feel their attitude as a reflection of their “feelings,” but there is no such thing in politics. In truth, neither Republican nor Democrat politicians care about Israel; if it were up to them, they would casually kick us out of here and into the Mediterranean Sea.

What politicians do want is to be reelected, and in order to be reelected, they must cater to their constituency’s taste. If their voters favor Israel, so will their messengers in the House of Representatives. If their voters dislike Israel, so will their reps.

In addition to the above, there is one person in the White House with a real agenda when it comes to Israel: Barack Hussein Obama. He is the one pulling the strings in the current administration, and the Biden-Harris title is just a front. Obama’s odium toward Israel is religiously, geographically, and politically motivated. We must have no illusions about this.

Nevertheless, Israel is not helpless. We may not be able to change the opinion of politicians about Israel, but we can change the opinion of their voters, and this is what really counts. If we, in Israel, unite above our (countless) differences, we will dissolve any hatred that the world currently feels toward us, and it does. The world’s eyes are always on Israel, often even more than on domestic affairs. People feel that what happens here affects them personally. The loathing we are showing to each other here radiates throughout the world and its ripples ignite conflicts and wars the world over. This is why Jew haters blame Israel and Jews for causing all the wars. They don’t really think that we start wars everywhere on the planet, but they feel that it’s our fault.

And the truth is that they’re right. We are starting wars by fighting among ourselves. The world constantly pays us attention; we project hatred; the world absorbs the hatred we project; and the hatred starts wars. We think that the world has forgotten about the “nonsense” of that Biblical obligation of Israel to be “a light unto nations,” and the world, too, may not think about it consciously. But the fact that the world is always looking at us, always examining our every move, and always judging us by a higher standard than it judges the rest of the nations, is because it expects us to be “a light unto nations.”

Actions are not determined by people’s words, but by people’s feelings. They feel that we, Jews in general and Israel in particular, are a source of trouble. The only way we can stop being a burden and a menace in the eyes of the world is if we reinstate the unity that had made us into a nation, stop projecting hatred, and the stream of hatred threatening to drown the world will stop. We may not want to unite with our brothers, but we cannot say that there is nothing we can do against Jew hatred. In fact, we are the only nation on Earth whose fate is solely in its own hands.

For more on this topic, please see my latest publication, The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism: Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord
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My new article on Linkedin “The Vicious Cycle of Success and Hatred”

We Jews have always been successful far beyond our proportion of the world’s population. The same goes for Israel, the Jewish State. We are world leaders in technology, in medicine, in development and manufacturing of arms and sophisticated weapons, and we even excel in agriculture and water solutions.

Overseas, Jewish people are at the top of the American finance industry, and not only in America. Many famous actors and comedians are Jewish, we shine in politics, law, and if you look at the list of Nobel Prize laureates throughout the years, you’ll find a staggering number of Jews there.

There is a very good reason that the world is largely unimpressed with our achievements, and when it is, it holds them against us. These achievements are not what the world wants from us. If it were, they would thank us, but they don’t. The world expects something totally different from the Jews: As unlikely as it sounds, the world expects from us to project unity, and nothing else.

You’d think that since we have contributed so much to the world, the world would cheer for us. It doesn’t. In fact, it does the opposite: It blames our arms industry for starting wars, and our financiers for causing financial crises and for taking people’s money. The world blames us for spreading bad values through the entertainment industry, and for manipulating politicians in Israel’s favor. And most recently, the world blames us for vaccinating the Israeli population so quickly instead of giving the vaccines to the Palestinians. Why doesn’t the world appreciate us? Why do they hate us?

There is a very good reason that the world is largely unimpressed with our achievements, and when it is, it holds them against us. These achievements are not what the world wants from us. If it were, they would thank us, but they don’t. The world expects something totally different from the Jews: As unlikely as it sounds, the world expects from us to project unity, and nothing else.

The global attention that the Jewish State and the Jewish people are constantly getting has a very deep root. Our forefathers came from all those nations that are now observing our every move. We don’t have a common root; our ancestors came from many tribes and peoples all over the ancient Fertile Crescent. These people were often sworn enemies, but under Abraham’s leadership, they forged a solid group and unique cohesion that has never been achieved before or after, except by Jews. Abraham’s descendants developed and polished their unity until they managed to turn complete strangers, who hated one another, into a unified nation.

To achieve such a miraculous union, they had to form a stronger bond than any nation had ever achieved, and that union turned a tiny group into a formidable power. The rulers of the strongest nations always respected the Jews, gave them freedom, and let them rule themselves. The Babylonians, the Greeks and the Romans all let the Israelites rule themselves in Israel. They only conquered Israel and interfered with our lives if we invited them, since we did not want to stay united anymore.

But when we united, we were “a light unto nations.” The link between the strangers who formed Abraham’s first group and the nations they came from is still there, buried deep within them. This is why the nations cannot stop observing our every move. This is also why only we, the representatives of countless peoples, could become “a light unto nations,” an example of “world peace” within our nation. To this day, this is what the nations want to learn from us—that magical unity that formed thousands of hostile individuals into a solid nation. They feel deep down in their subconscious that we owe them this since we are inseparable from them, and deep down, we feel it, too.

But since we fell into unfounded hatred, we have demonstrated nothing but disdain and contempt for one another, the opposite of what the world expects from us. In such a state, no matter what we do, it will hate us, since we are denying it the one thing it needs from us.

Instead of demonstrating unity, we fell into a vicious cycle of success and great achievements, which lead to hubris, which causes us to divide among us even more, which then intensifies the world’s hatred toward us even more. We must understand that anything that separates us intensifies the world’s hatred toward us, and nothing separates us more than success. For this reason, whatever we do that’s currently considered an achievement, rest assured that it will eventually be held against us. It is a vicious cycle of success and hatred, and the only way to break it is to focus our attention solely on our unity.
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My new article on Linkedin “The Root of Israel Will Give Israel No Peace”

Prof. Ran Blitzer, head of Israel’s Experts Cabinet appointed to fight Covid-19, has stated that the closure isn’t working anymore. Vaccines are effective, he said, but we are still seeing high infection rates. Alongside the battle with the virus, Israel is grappled in yet another vitriolic general elections campaign, which makes many of the Covid related decisions made by policymakers politically motivated, at the expense of the public’s health. The overall sensation among many Israelis is that there is chaos and disorientation because of the political mayhem, where politicians are battling each other instead of the virus.

The crises may seem unrelated, and each country is dealing with its problems on its own, but the truth is that everything is connected. Even worse, on a deeper level, everything is connected to Israel. And now that the American saga has calmed down a little, the world will turn its attention to Israel and the Jews, and not in order to compliment us on our achievement in vaccinating the Israeli population so quickly.

But chaos isn’t taking over only in Israel. Social, political, and medical crises are occurring the world over. The news may have focused more on the US since last summer due to the growing racial and political tensions that turned violent there, but Europe has been entangled with persistent violent political and Covid related riots, as has Russia, Myanmar, with its military coup, and many other countries. Even where there seems to be relative calm, such as in China, it is only a facade. Everyone is suffering from the global economic slowdown, the repeated closures, and the unnerving sense that humanity has no leaders, that everyone is at a loss.

The crises may seem unrelated, and each country is dealing with its problems on its own, but the truth is that everything is connected. Even worse, on a deeper level, everything is connected to Israel. And now that the American saga has calmed down a little, the world will turn its attention to Israel and the Jews, and not in order to compliment us on our achievement in vaccinating the Israeli population so quickly.

We must understand once and for all why the world never stops blaming Israel for its woes, and why it feels that Israel owes it something. The root of the people of Israel is not in some remote tribe in ancient Mesopotamia. Israel coalesced into a nation after many people from many tribes and nations joined together under Abraham’s leadership since they believed in his tenet that mercy and love of others are the keys to happiness. Those people, who had nothing in common, developed a unique bond that was based on an ideology of unity above enmity rather than on familiar or tribal affinity. Because those strangers had to overcome profound initial distrust and hatred, the bond they forged had to be equally strong. As a result, the bond they formed was like no other, and it lifted Israel to heights that had never existed before. That bond, forged by transcending intense enmity, became a role model for the nations, a proof that we can bridge any rancor and resolve any conflict, if we only exalt unity high enough.

But the connection between the people of Israel and the nations of the world has not been broken. It cannot be broken since the nations of the world are our root, our origin. This is why humanity cannot stop taking interest in Israel or in Jews. Like it or not, they feel connected to the Jews, and like it or not, we are connected to them, to all the nations in the world.

Today, when disarray and disunion plague every corner of the globe, the world will turn to Israel even more quickly than before. Israel, which once managed to unite sworn enemies under the idea that unity is the supreme value, is now failing the world. We have turned our most sacred values of “mutual responsibility” and “love of others” into mere lip-service, election slogans that no one means and no one believes. Yet, these values are exactly what the world needs, we are the ones who once achieved it, and because the world feels connected to us, it demands this from us. It demands that we restore our unity and spread it, share the secret of uniting above hatred.

In the meantime, we, who have abandoned our unity, have become the distrusting people we were before we came to Abraham and discovered the value of unity. We want to rejoin the nations of the world, but they will not let us. They will only accept one thing from us: that we become Israel once more. They don’t need us to be like them; they need us to be Israel—people who rise above their hatred and unite, and thereby set an example that today is the only thing that can save the world from misery.
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My new article on Linkedin “The One Clear Takeaway from President Biden’s First Foreign Policy Speech”

US President Joe Biden’s first foreign policy speech had a clear message for Israel. It wasn’t in what he said, but in what he didn’t say. He didn’t mention Israel. Even more interesting, in naming America’s closest friends, and Biden’s aim for “reforming the habits of cooperation and rebuilding the muscle of democratic alliances,” Israel was nowhere to be found. According to Biden, “America’s alliances are our greatest asset, and leading with diplomacy means standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and key partners once again.” But if Israel is not mentioned among America’s allies, it means we are not a great asset to America, in the eyes of this administration, and it will not stand “shoulder-to-shoulder” with us.

This should come as no surprise to us. I warned that Biden would reverse Trump’s policy, and he went straight to work as soon as he took office. But is this bad for Israel? It is certainly unpleasant, but with all due respect, whether it is bad for Israel or not depends on our actions, not on Biden’s will.

As I explained in countless essays and several books, Israel depends on itself because Israel depends on its internal unity. When we are united, we dissolve the enmity of the world toward us. It is not that we are stronger in the military sense because we are united; it is that achieving unity is itself the purpose of our being a sovereign state. The world feels connected to Israel because our forefathers came from the nations of the world. At that time of the formation of our people, civilization was largely concentrated around the Fertile Crescent. Our forefathers, who came from many tribes and peoples along that area, were initially distrustful and hateful toward each other, much as we are now. Despite their suspicions, they developed such regard for unity that they managed to overcome their enmity and formed a nation.

In doing so, Israel, which contained “specimens” of all the nations of the world, became a minuscule example of world peace. Being “a light unto nations” means being that example. When we unite, we set the example that the world needs, and this dissolves its enmity toward us and turns it into favor. When we decline into the current state of inner conflicts and enmity, we violate the purpose of our nationhood, and the world sees no benefit in our existence.

For the past two millennia, we have been in a state of hatred that we haven’t managed to overcome. By doing so, we broke that sample of “world peace” and the world lost its only proof that peace is truly possible. This is the root of its contempt and hostility toward Jews. Yet, this also means that if we want to reverse the nations’ feelings toward us, we needn’t focus on pleasing them but on restoring our internal unity. This is what will truly please them as it will enable them to forge peace among themselves, as well.

For this reason, I think that the cold shoulder that the Biden administration is giving us is a golden opportunity for the people of Israel to unite, and truly be what we can and must be—a role model of unity against all odds and above all contradictions. If we rise to the challenge, we will not need to worry about who is occupying the White House.
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