The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, July 30, 2007.

The IDF—the Israel Defense Forces—has long been known as a “citizens army.” Since December 1987, however, when the first intifada broke out, the IDF has increasingly become a politician’s army. Its primary purpose is not to protect Israel’s civilian population, but to protect the international reputation of Israeli prime ministers. These prime ministers want to be perceived as humanitarians, exercising self-restraint vis-à-vis Arab terrorists.

This, they believe, will inspire respect for themselves (and Israel) as morally superior to their enemies. Self-restraint has thus become their badge of honor and reinforces Israel’s reputation as “the only democracy in the Middle East.” Given this reputation, Public Relations preoccupy Israel’s ruling elites. (more…)

Reflecting back on my 31 years in Israel, it seems to me the IDF has often served Israel’s government as an instrument to mislead the public in order to facilitate the government’s defeatist policy of “territory for peace.”

Before I cite the latest example, it should be noted that IDF spokesmen have repeatedly intoned the government’s mantra that there is no military solution to the problem of Arab terrorism. This means there is no alternative to territorial retreat. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, Israel’s Command and Staff College has taught the absurd doctrine that “self-restraint” is a form of strength. (more…)

The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy was established in 1995. Its constitutional reform program was published in the United States as well as in Israel. I am repeatedly asked: “Why doesn’t the nationalist camp in Israel or any prominent Zionist organization in the United States more or less endorse the Foundation’s program?” What prevents them from saying something like this: “We support, with some reservations, the institutional reforms proposed by the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy.”

This puzzles me because some Zionist organizations in the United States have occasionally sponsored one or another of my lectures. (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, May 28, 2007.

When the Likud dropped to 12 seats in the March 2006 election, this meant that secular Zionism was dead. Moreover, in that election the National Religious Party had to unite with National Union to be politically visible—which suggests that religious Zionism is moribund. I conclude that 20^th century Zionism, which founded the State of Israel, is obsolete, and this means that Israel lacks the semblance of any ideology.

Zionism has metamorphosed into an anti-Jewish post-Zionism. Superficial observers blame the Labor Party for this decadent state of affairs. But the Likud is also blameworthy, (more…)

All those who went to Homesh to express their Jewish commitment to Eretz Israel deserve the greatest praise. Their evacuation by the police will not dishearten them. Among them will be the leaders of a future Israel.

But they should know and carefully consider the fact that events in Israel and in the Middle East are running much, much faster than their own current activities. (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, March 19, 2007.

Fearful of anti-Semitism, some misguided people have said Israel is bad for the Jews. But it’s not Israel but Israel’s government that is bad for the Jews. We see this even when the government is led by the Likud, ostensibly a Zionist or nationalist party. But Likud Zionism is first and foremost political or secular, and this Zionism has turned out to be bad for the Jews.

This was foreseen by Dr. Isaac Breuer, a religious Zionist who was one of the greatest exponents of Jewish thought in the first half of the twentieth century. Although he admired Theodor Herzl, he maintained that only observant Jews can be true Zionists, (more…)

[Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, December 25, 2006.]

Israel is disintegrating. The basic causes of this disintegration may be listed under four headings: (1) disunity resulting from a lack of Jewish statesmanship and Jewish national purpose; (2) disunity resulting from a flawed system of government; (3) disunity resulting from excessive cultural heterogeneity; (4) disunity resulting from secular-religious discord.

Underlying each of these causes is a more fundamental one: a modern conception of democracy that clashes with Judaism and makes it impossible to achieve the national unity required for Israel’s survival. (more…)

From time to time we hear that secular Zionism is dead. Actually, secular Zionism was always a logical impossibility—as contradictory as atheism and theism. Let’s define our terms.

Secularism is the tendency of man to assert the autonomy of his own will or reason vis-à-vis any deity. (more…)

Hatikva, a few days after the liberation of Bergen Belsen.

This recently discovered recording [access by clicking on the link below] was made by the BBC on April 20, 1945, a few days after the liberation of Bergen Belsen by the British Army.

An amazing recording.

http://tinyurl.com/jbmou

May we be worthy of these incredible Jews.

In his article: “The Power of Muslim Zionism” (NY Sun, June 6, 2006), Daniel Pipes concludes: “the Muslim use of Zion represents a more powerful force today than the Jewish love of Zion.”

The notion of “Muslim Zionism” is an oxymoron, and Pipes conclusion is an insult to the Jewish people, especially those that made the Land of Israel flourish. Muslims or Arabs have no real love of the land, as history clearly demonstrates. (more…)

Dear Dr. Pipes:

I have long praised your courage and much of your work, but you have crossed a red line with this outrageous article “Muslim Zionism.” It is utterly irresponsible and even treacherous, that you should give your name to what is by no means an in-depth study. All your essay will do is reinforce the greatest evil confronting Israel and the West. This intellectually shallow journalism will not wake up Jews—if that was its intention—but only arm their enemies. Disgraceful!!! (more…)

In his book The Future of Israel, historian Devin Sper writes eloquently about the Land of Israel. He cites ancient writers who confirmed that the Land of Israel had the most excellent and fertile soil, productive of every variety of fruit. Josephus is quoted:

The whole area is excellent for crops or cattle and rich in forests of every kind, so that by its adaptability it invites even those least inclined to work on the land…All their streams are remarkably sweet, and lush grass is so plentiful that the milk-yield of their cows is exceptionally heavy. The final proof of their outstanding productivity is the swarming population of [Judea and Samaria].

Edited transcript of “The Eidelberg Report”, Israel National Radio, May 1, 2006.

The March 2006 election witnessed the collapse of the Likud and the National Religious Party. This collapse is symptomatic of the demise of twentieth-century Zionism—secular as well as religious. Israel no longer has even the illusion of an ideology. It has become a Kadima society, a chance aggregation of individuals and groups without any ideological bonds.

Jews in Israel are in despair. More than a third did not vote in the March election, and those that did have little confidence in the ruling elites. The government is headed by defeatists, devoid of constructive, Jewish ideas. What can possibly fill this ideological void? To answer this question, we must first understand what has brought us to this miserable condition. (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, April 24, 2006.

Thirteen bloody years of experience with the serial killers of the Palestinian Authority (PA) have taught Israel’s Left nothing—and the mentality of Left has infected the nation, including the religious parties and the misnamed Right. Despite the genocidal objectives of the PA, Israel behaves as if peace with these Jew-killers can be achieved by “disengagement.” How is this bizarre state of affairs to be understood? (more…)

Commenting on the Torah portion, The Life of Sara (in his monumental ouvre, Frameworks), Matis Weinberg writes: “With the Cave of Machpela, Avraham discovered … the intensity of his love of Sara, the depth of his roots in the earth, and his own need to remain rooted …”

In a marginal note, Rabbi Weinberg quotes Simone Weil: “To be rooted is perhaps the most important and the least recognized need of the human soul.” Unfortunately, Israel’s two most powerful office-holders, Supreme Court President Aaron Barak and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, are oblivious of this simple but profound truth, for they themselves are severed from the roots of the Jewish People. (more…)

Although a coup d’état may only involve a radical change of those who control the State, it often produces a basic changes in the character and purpose of the State. Before examining coup d’états that have occurred in Israel, some preliminary remarks are necessary.

The concept of the sovereign State, which goes back to Machiavelli, is foreign to the Torah, which recognizes only the sovereignty of God. The paramount instrument of the State is of course its government, its political and judicial institutions and bureaucracy. The State has taken the place of people. The State has also taken the place of God. The worship of the State is everywhere, including Israel. Here, even religious Jews genuflect to the sovereign State. (more…)

Introduction:
One of my most thoughtful e-mail correspondents is a Hareidi mother—a journalist—quite knowledgeable about Israeli politics and the various factions of the Jewish world. The letter below was prompted by the government’s brutal treatment of the settlers in Amona. Even if one disagrees with the Hareidi critique of the State and its religious Zionist supporters on theoretical grounds, or deems their attitude toward abandoning Jewish settlements unapt on pragmatic grounds (as she does), nevertheless, the letter is worthy of serious study by both religious and non-religious Jews.

While reading this letter one should bear in mind that no less than Nobel Prize laureate Professor Yisrael Aumann, a lifelong religious Zionist, has said that the ideology of the chassidei Satmar, which negates all ties with the State and all that it represents, including its institutions, may have been right after all! The author of the letter, however, is not of the Satmar school. (more…)

Anyone who has studied Machiavelli knows that the modern concept of the “state” originates in The Prince. The state and the laws of the state are wholly a human product, based on the autonomy of human will. Louis XIV is reputed to have said “L’état c’est moi.” That autocrat may have read chapter 3 of The Prince.

Autocrats rule Israel. When Supreme Court President Aharon Barak said “everything is justiciable,” he thereby crowned himself Israel’s monarch. Barak can nullify any act of the Knesset. Without his imprimatur, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could not have trampled on Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom by expelling 8,000 Jews from Gaza, which Barak decreed “occupied territory.”

The arbitrary decisions of these two autocrats indicate that the so-called “Jewish State” is a contradiction in terms. (more…)

Press Release

The Merger of Yamin Israel and the Jewish National Front

The Yamin Israel Party, under the present leadership of Prof. Paul Eidelberg, Eleonora Shifrin and Prof. Israel Hanukoglu, is happy to announce its merger with the Jewish National Alliance (Hazit) under the chairmanship of Baruch Merzel. (more…)

“Are American Jews Disappearing?” is the lead article in a recent issue of the magazine New York. One could readily substitute “French” or “English” Jews in the title, for assimilation and intermarriage are widespread throughout the Diaspora. Prominent Jews were interviewed, but none seems to have explored the basic causes of Jewish assimilation in America.

Inasmuch as assimilation is most rampant among college graduates, the first basic cause should be obvious, namely, the doctrine of cultural relativism that has long dominated American education. Students immersed in the social sciences or in the humanities are taught that religion is not a matter of objective truth but of cultural conditioning or of personal preference. It follows that Judaism is no more valid than any another religion. Hence why be Jewish? (more…)