(Last update: August 21, 2020)
On Thursday, August 13, 2020, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surprised everyone. With no advance-notice, Netanyahu announced he will sign a Peace treaty with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a wealthy Arab nation more than 1,200 miles distant from Israel (here).
While this deal is designed to bring many benefits to Israel (here), it also appears to have some unadvertised surprises. We know at the very outset of this deal about one such surprise: Israel has promised to "suspend" declaring sovereignty over parts of Judea-Samaria (ibid). Right now, we don't yet know if there will be other 'surprises'.
This "suspension" of sovereignty is viewed by many on Israel's Right as a betrayal (here). Repeatedly during his career, Netanyahu has promised the Right many things--more settlements, education benefits, religious benefits--and sovereignty for Judea-Samaria. But with each of his Right-wing promises, Netanyahu fails to deliver.
For so many Right-wing Israelis, this new Israeli commitment to 'suspend' sovereignty is no suspension at all. It will be, they say, permanent.
As a consequence of this new Peace deal, Netanyahu--the one man in Israel responsible for putting sovereignty on 'the table' in the first place--is now being viciously condemned as a liar and a traitor. He has betrayed the Israel's Right to make Peace with what nation? Where?
Rightists in Israel are livid. Once again, Netanyahu has not fulfilled an election promise (here).
This latest betrayal may be the Right's proverbial last straw: now, some on Israel's Right join with Israel's Left to call for Netanyahu's ouster (here). He must, they say, be replaced (here).
But then, Netanyahu has also said sovereignty is not off "the agenda" (here). Will the Right believe him?
Too many on Israel's Right say, no. They don't believe him.
Netanyahu doesn't have a lot of friends on the Right, right now. But I for one will not judge him so harshly--at least, not at this moment. There are two reasons to say this. I'd like to share those reasons with you.
First, sovereignty is more than a political issue. It's also a religious issue. Indeed, it's one of the religious road-markers Jews need to see happen if we, the Jewish people, are to move forward to secure our Final Redemption.
The problem is, sovereignty has not been a hot topic for any of Israel's most important leaders. In fact, it's actually been a topic our politicians pretty much never discuss.
The prevailing political position in Israel has been that sovereignty can't be done. There are too many questions: what would the 'Palestinians' say? What would such a unilateral Jewish declaration do to our region?
What would the EU say? What would the UN say? What would the US say?
For so many of Israel's politicians, there are simply too many negative consequences with sovereignty. Avoiding sovereignty has been much easier than embracing it.
Of course, that creates a Jewish Destiny problem. We don't move forward to our Destiny when we fear sovereignty.
However, more than a year ago, everything about 'sovereignty' changed. Netanyahu introduced it into the April, 2019 election (here). If you elect me, he'd said, I will declare sovereignty over parts of Judea-Samaria after forming my new government (ibid).
Even though Netanyahu hasn't been able to form his (Right-leaning) "new government", he kept sovereignty in his electioneering for the next two elections. Such constant talk of sovereignty has meant Israel sovereignty is now center-stage. It's been that way for more than seventeen months. It's still in the news (here). We are no longer afraid to talk of it.
Who put sovereignty on the table? Netanyahu. Who got Israel talking about it over three national elections? Netanyahu.
This is the gift Netanyahu has given to the Jewish people. It is he who made sovereignty 'talk-able'. It is he who 'talked it up'.
He has fulfilled the historic role an Israeli leader needs to fill for the Jewish people to move towards its Destiny. He has made sovereignty "discussable".
Moreover, Netanyahu didn't just put sovereignty before us. He did a more important service: his actions held up a mirror to us.
As a recent poll suggests, Israelis are not ready to jump into sovereignty (here). Almost 77% of respondents to a poll taken just days after the UAE-Peace deal was announced say they prefer the UAE deal to sovereignty (ibid). Only 16.5% chose sovereignty over the UAE deal (ibid).
For the Jewish people to enjoy their Final Redemption, there must be sovereignty over our ancient Jewish national homeland. But there must also be unity. That much is part of our Redemption Heritage. But in Israel today, if less than 17% of Jews agree that unifying our national homeland under Jewish sovereignty is important, then we lack the unified voice necessary to create that sovereignty--and its consequence, moving closer to Redemption.
This Netanyahu-UAE deal has made this lack of unity clear. Yes, everyone in Israel has now heard enough about sovereignty to have an opinion about it. But that deal has also shown us that Jewish Israel prefers peace with a far-away Arab country to sovereignty over our ancient national homeland.
Netanyahu has shown us we've got a lot of work to do. Like it or not, the Jewish collective isn't ready for sovereignty.
The second reason this Peace-suspend-sovereignty deal doesn't anger me as much as it angers some is based upon something we learn from our Heritage--from our Talmud. There, we learn that, each day, we should remind ourselves that everything that happens in our world happens because of our G-d, HaShem. Put another way, we learn that nothing ever happens to us without G-d's knowledge, approval or permission!
Therefore, Netanyahu did what he did with G-d's knowledge, permission--or, approval. Do you really believe Netanyahu suspended sovereignty in exchange for a Peace deal with the UAE without G-d's knowledge? He may have pulled a 'fast one' on us, the human citizens of Israel--but do you truly believe he also pulled a 'fast one' on HaShem, our G-d? Of course not. HaShem knew exactly what Netanyahu would do.
Do you think Netanyahu has the power to suspend sovereignty without G-d's permission? Of course not.
If you have a problem with the apparent failure of sovereignty, then your problem isn't with Netanyahu. It's with--G-d forbid--HaShem.
Truthfully, as a religious Zionist, I don't worry about Netanyahu. I've got my own Redemption issues to worry about. If I really want Redemption to come, Netanyahu's behavior doesn't affect me one bit. What affects me is me.
If I want Redemption to come, I have to worry about my own actions, not Netanyahu's. I have to correct myself, not someone else.
HaShem has a Plan. We all know that. We just don't know the modern details of that Plan. When we see Israel's leader make a deal to secure a treaty in exchange for "suspending" sovereignty, we need to step back, not to attack the leader who did this, but to marvel at how it is HaShem--not a Prime Minister--who controls the twists and turns of history.
That's what is happening here. HaShem is asserting his Power over us. We are outraged?
As you consider this Peace deal, you might wish to remember what the Jewish Prophet, Yeshayahu, said when he spoke of "the end of days" (Yeshayahu, 2:2). In Judaism, this 'end of days' refers to the days preceding the Final Redemption--or, alternatively, to the Redemption itself. What did Yeshayahu say about "the end of days? He said, that's when the nations "will beat their swords into plowshares" (ibid, 2:4).
At our Redemption, there will be Peace. Nations will stop making war. They will convert their weapons into plows.
Could this UAE-Netanyahu-Peace story actually suggest that this "end of days" Peace process is about to begin? Is that what this deal is all about?
Stay tuned.
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