This week, in an eerie redo of the pernicious “Zionism is Racism” resolution, 90 member states of the august United Nations voted to commemorate the upcoming 75th anniversary of the “Nakba.” Nakba means “disaster” in Arabic, and is the term chosen by the Arabs to describe Israel’s Independence Day. (30 countries voted “No,” and 47 abstained.)

While this may rankle the diplomats in the Israeli Foreign Ministry, this is good news for Jews and Judaism, albeit in a wrap-around, boomerang kind of way. What is significant is not what is said at the UN, but the unspoken subtext that underpins this vote in particular, and the renascence of Jew hatred all over the world in general.

Rabbi Y.B. Soloveitchik, zt”l, wrote that there are three alternative interpretations of the history of Western civilization - the Islamic, the Christian and the Jewish. The adherents of each are unshakably committed to its fulfillment, and each vision is mutually incompatible with the others. In the end, only one worldview will be demonstrated to be truthful, accurate, and correct; only one worldview can account for all the historical data without the need to ignore inconvenient facts.

Of the three worldviews, only the Jewish worldview can point to tangible historical developments that corroborate our understanding of Western history.

The Torah promises first and foremost that despite our disobedience, backsliding and subsequent exile, the Jewish People would never be completely eradicated from the face of the earth. Despite the most determined efforts of our oppressors, most notably the Roman Catholic Church and its secular and ecclesiastical agents, assigns, representatives and intellectual heirs, and in defiance of the imperatives of history, the Jewish People have survived.

The Torah promises a re-establishment of the Jewish Commonwealth and the return of the Jewish exiles from the ends of the earth. The previous generation witnessed the miraculous establishment of the State of Israel. We are witness in our generations of the return of the Jewish exiles; within a few short years, an absolute majority of the world’s Jewish population will reside in Israel, marking the official end of the bitter Roman exile.

Israel was a forgotten wasteland for millenia, a backwater. Today, in fulfillment of Torah prophesies, Israel sprouts forth with such verdant lushness that the Apollo astronauts could clearly demarcate the "Green Line" between lands under Jewish and Arab control from space.

The Talmud teaches us that this is the surest sign that the final redemption is near (Sanhedrin 98a). All of this and more has come to pass. We are witnessing the resurrection of Ezekiel’s dried bones before our very eyes.

Israel is in the headlines every day - out of all proportion to her size (she ranks about 125th in size out of 180 countries) and population (100/180). The Torah says that it is the place that Hashem watches “from the beginning of the year to the end of the year”; so, apparently, does the rest of the world. Why? Yerushalayim and the Har HaBayit (Temple Mount) are the spiritual epicenter of the world, as the place chosen by Hashem lishaken Shmo sham (for His Name to dwell there).

The Jewish/Arab conflict in the Middle East is not about the relative merits of Jew or Arab to live on the Land; there is enough land in what was formerly known as “Palestine” for all without Israel giving up any of the area it now possesses. The ongoing war in Israel is the fulcrum of the intellectual/spiritual conflict between the worldviews that oppose G-d’s rule on earth, and its manifestation through the return of the Jews to the Land.


They say: "Come, let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel will be remembered no more. The consult together with a united purpose; against Hashem do they make a covenant. The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites. Gival, Ammon and Amalek; Philistine and the residents of Tyre. Assyria is also joined with them; they have become an appendage of the children of Lot, selah. (Psalm 83)

A sovereign Israel is an existential threat to the adherents of Christian & Moslem replacement theologies; it shakes their worldviews to the foundations. A thriving Jewish Commonwealth puts the lie to their system of beliefs. The destruction of the State of Israel and the re-expulsion of the Jews are critical to Christian and Moslem worldviews, in order to correct the “aberration” of the Ingathering of the Exiles, kibutz galuyot. All efforts to hobble and constrict the State of Israel, to push her back to indefensible borders, to murder Jewish women and children, especially new immigrants, are important milestones toward their ultimate goal of rolling back history to the good old days when the Jews were scattered to the four corners of the globe, easy prey for the Jew haters.

So the UN passes yet more Jew hating resolutions. Pish Tush, as Gilbert & Sullivan would say.. Should they ever succeed in uprooting the People of Israel from the Land of Israel, you can rest assured they would trip over themselves building elaborate memorials to the failed Jewish enterprise.

However, Israel and the settlement enterprise will endure because it is the mitzvah she’kol ha’mitzvot t’luyin bah (i.e., living in the Land of Israel is the mitzvah upon which every other mitzvah is predicated). Witness the open miracles in the battles of 1948, 1967, 1973. Nowhere in Biblical Prophecy does it suggest that Hashem will return us to our land only to be expelled again.

In a certain sense, Theodore Herzl was wrong: the establishment of Der Judenstaat has failed to solve the problem of Jew hatred. Israel is now reckoned as the Jew among the nations. But their strenuous objections to the Jewish State serve merely to reinforce the fundamental integrity of our worldview, our mission, and our hopeful vision for humanity.

So let’s celebrate Nakba Day! The proper response to the exasperated last gasps of our detractors is to build, build, build. Build up the Land. Build more houses in Yehuda, Shomron and the periphery.

And finally: let us extend our hand in brotherhood to those gentiles who see the Hand of G-d in historical events, and who wish to join with us to bring us closer to the day when G-d is One and His Name is One in the world.

Rabbi Mizrachiis the author of a new book: Holistic Judaism: A Radical Rethinking of Our Service to Gcd and our Fellow Man in the Messianic Age. Available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle as an e-Book. He can be reached at HolisticJudaism@gmail.com