The Real World

(First published in the Jerusalem Report, October 21)

Rabbi Dr. Ron Kronish makes a compelling case (Jerusalem Report, October 7) that the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael must learn to live together. He touts our shared ancestry and shared values and attributes continued strife to “deeply ingrained negative stereotypes” that need to be “overcome today through education and dialogue.” If only it were true. My heart is with the writer, though not my head.

All Jews want peace, prosperity, and freedom for all peoples. In the real world in which we reside, Islam is dominated by a relative minority of radicals for whom the existence of Israel is repugnant and unacceptable. Indeed, that fraction of Muslims might number 10% of all Muslims, which computes to one hundred million people of the roughly billion Muslims across the globe. That is not a small number and they wage war not only against Israel but also against the West. They have perpetrated terrorists acts in dozens of cities across the world, and of course delight in murdering Jews wherever we might be found.

We can wish this were not so – Dr. Kronish completely elides this very recent history – but we would be saps to base our diplomacy and statecraft upon wishful thinking. Such wishful thinking underwrote the Oslo Accords and their “sacrifices for peace,” the creation of the Palestinian Authority, the expulsion of Jews from Gaza, the tolerance of the Hamas terror infrastructure, and directly led to the atrocities of October 7 and the multifront wars Israel is now waging. We indulge the saccharine rhetoric about the “moderates” and “coexistence” at our peril; it was the exact same language that lulled Israel into the catastrophic diplomacy of the last three decades.

Certainly, there are moderates in the Arab world. The Abraham Accords spearheaded by President Trump demonstrates that. Israeli visitors to the United Arab Emirates are treated quite hospitably. And yet, all the peace treaties have not changed hearts and minds in the Muslim world. Few Israelis now venture into Egypt or Jordan, and Jordanians and Egyptians have wantonly murdered Jews. Even in Dubai, Jewish public prayer has ended. Worse, after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, hundreds of the “innocent civilians” of Gaza rampaged, raped, marauded, and murdered even Jews who had befriended them, hired them, transported them to Israeli hospitals. Peace and co-existence are unnecessary with the moderates and impossible with the radicals.

Of all the Arab states that have made peace with Israel – a welcome development per se– it is hard to think of even one that would mourn Israel’s disappearance. Consequently, even these nations that are ostensible peace partners with Israel routinely vote against Israel in the United Nations. Yes, a cold peace is better than a hot war – but there is something much deeper that unfortunately precludes full co-existence.

That impediment is an Islamic doctrine that dictates that any land that was once Muslim remains Muslim in perpetuity, and if lost, must be recaptured, the Dar al-Islām. That Jews have returned as sovereigns in the land of Israel is especially galling. We can wish that away as well but wishing it away does not make it less true. And if 10% of Muslims subscribe to that doctrine, then “education and dialogue” is asking them to repudiate their religion, a fools’ errand indeed.

Many Israelis still delude themselves into thinking that this conflict is all about real estate and finding the right division of territory to satisfy both sides. This is an egregious error born of a secular mindset that cannot admit there are people who take religion seriously. It was baked into Israeli diplomacy, which is one reason Israel’s strategic position has so deteriorated since Oslo. We would be prudent – as befitting a “wise and discerning people” (Devarim 4:6) – not to repeat the same mistakes but to look to our traditions and Torah for our claims to the land of Israel.

It is disconcerting that, in the entire article, Dr. Kronish uses the word “violent” only in relation to what he terms “extremist settler Judaism,” apparently willing to deny the settlers of the Jewish heartland the right to defend themselves and our land. Note the irony that the way Israelis on the left regard the settlers is the same way the world regards Israelis – violent, extreme, genocidal, and other lies. But the settlers are the ones who counter the Muslim narrative with a proudly Jewish one – that this is the land that G-d granted us, from which we were exiled, and to which the Jewish prophets declared we would (and did) return. That is the grand drama of Jewish history.

Must this war end one day, as Dr. Kronish declares? We can hope for that as well, as long as hope does not transmute into naiveté. But Hamas has already infiltrated Jerusalem and dominates the Arab educational, commercial, cultural, and political institutions there. Hamas is more powerful today in Judea and Samaria than is the Palestinian Authority, itself rampant with Jew hatred. Iran shows no signs of abating its Jew hatred and prepares to develop nuclear weaponry, winked at (if not subsidized) by the current American government. And I am unaware of the pedagogical tools that will persuade those who delight in burning children alive and stealing corpses for ransom, and those who support them, of the error of their ways. Sadly, the current battles will end but the war will go on, as it has since the first Jewish casualty of Arab violence in the land of Israel 140 years ago.

When will it end? Jewish tradition in many places (see, e.g., Zohar, Parshat Vaera, end of chapter 7) states that the final war at the end of days will be between the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael. Our long and bloody history with our brother Esav is essentially behind us and the climactic battle with Ishmael will be waged over the land of Israel.

This war – all wars – will end when redemption comes and all mankind recognizes the sovereignty of the Creator of the universe. Until then, we should befriend all moral people who believe in the Bible and respect the Jewish narrative. And we can hasten that day of peace not by renouncing our heritage in the futile quest of winning over moderates without power or influence anywhere, but by deepening our connection to Torah, mitzvot, and the land of Israel.