T. Belman. In essence this is the struggle Israel has waged since its founding. In 1896, Herzl launched the effort to create a Jewish state. It was the age of nationalism. That age ended in WWII when nationalism was discredited to be displaced by universalism, United Nations, European Union, multiculturalism, diversity, and globalism. All these forces have attempted to destroy Zionism, the last bastion of nationalism.
Not only has the nation state been discredited but so has the nation.
Thankfully nationalism is coming back as witnessed by Brexit, the rise of Trump and the rise of nationalistic parties in Europe. The state of Israel is a testament to its virtues. THIS PROFOUND ESSAY WILL BE PUBLISHED IN SIX PARTS.
A conflict is brewing over the shape of the international order. It centers around an idea—a biblical idea—long thought discredited by political elites.
[..] What is this all about? Many commentators have pointed to the Brexit vote, and this year’s American presidential campaign, as contests between policies favoring economic “globalization” and those informed by a more protectionist and insular “nationalism.” And there is much to be said for that characterization. But what divides the emerging camps also runs quite a bit deeper than is suggested by framing things in terms of one set of economic and foreign-policy preferences against another. What we are seeing is the beginning of a struggle over the character of the international political order itself.
For 350 years, Western peoples have lived in a world in which national independence and self-determination were seen as foundational principles. Indeed, these things were held to be among the most precious human possessions, and the basis of all of our freedoms. Since World War II, however, these intuitions have been gradually attenuated and finally even discredited, especially among academics and intellectuals, media opinion-makers, and business and political elites. Today, many in the West have come to regard an intense personal loyalty to the national state and its right to chart an independent course as something not only unnecessary but morally suspect. They no longer see national loyalties and traditions as necessarily providing a sound basis for the determining the laws we live by, for regulating the economy or making decisions about defense and security, for establishing public norms concerning religion or education, or for deciding who gets to live in what part of the world.
But those who have made this transition in fundamental political orientation have done so without making sure that everyone else was on board. Millions of people, especially outside the centers of elite opinion, still hold fast to the old understanding that the independence and self-determination of one’s nation hold the key to a life of honor and freedom. These are people who believe that no one ever consulted them about giving up on the freedom of their nation to protect its people, their interests, and their traditions. And when people think they weren’t consulted about giving up such precious commodities, they are apt to respond in dramatic, harsh, and often violent ways.
This means that the clash of fundamental political assumptions we are watching unfold is already much more extreme than has been fully understood. As what is at stake comes better into focus, political parties will realign. Entire countries will realign. The Brexit vote is only the first shot fired in a protracted conflict that will play itself out throughout the West and elsewhere.
A look at how this came to be can help us better to understand where we are headed.
I. Nation versus Empire
For centuries, the politics of Western nations have been characterized by a struggle between two antithetical visions of world order: an order of free and independent nations, each pursuing the political good in accordance with its own traditions and understanding; and an order of peoples united under a single regime of law, promulgated and maintained by a single supra-national authority. The first vision is today most clearly represented by nations like India, Israel, Japan, Norway, South Korea, and Switzerland—and now by Britain, perhaps to be followed by others. The second vision is held by much of the leadership of the European Union, which affirmed its commitment to the concept of an “ever closer union” of peoples in the Stuttgart Declaration of 1981 and has proceeded since then to introduce EU laws and currency into most member nations, as well as requiring the free movement of populations among most member states.
The conflict between these two visions is as old as the West itself. The idea that the political order should be based on independent nations was an important feature of ancient Israelite thought as reflected in the Hebrew Bible (or “Old Testament”). And although Western civilization, for most of its history, has been dominated by dreams of universal empire, the presence of the Bible at the heart of this civilization has ensured that the idea of the self-determining, independent nation would be revived time and again.
Why is the Hebrew Bible so concerned with the independence of nations? The world of Israel’s prophets was dominated by a succession of imperial powers: Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, and Persia, each giving way to the next. Despite their differences, each of these empires sought to impose a universal political order on mankind as a whole, the gods having sent them to suppress needless disputes among peoples and to create a unified international realm in which men could live together in peace and prosperity. “None hungered in my years or thirsted in them,” the Pharaoh Amenemhet I wrote a few centuries before Abraham. “Men dwelled in peace through that which I wrought.” And this was no idle boast. By ending warfare in vast regions and harnessing their populations to productive agricultural work, imperial powers were in fact able to bring to millions a relatively reliable peace and an end to the threat of starvation.
No wonder then that the imperial rulers of the ancient world saw it as their task, in the words of the Babylonian king Hamurabi, to “bring the four quarters of the world to obedience.” That obedience, after all, was what ensured salvation from war, disease, and starvation.
And yet, despite the obvious economic advantages of an Egyptian or Babylonian peace that would unify humanity, the Bible was born out of a deep-seated opposition to that very aim. To Israel’s prophets, Egypt was “the house of bondage,” and they spared no words in deploring the bloodshed and cruelty involved in imperial conquest and the imperial manner of governing, its recourse to slavery and murder and its expropriation of women and property. All of this, the Israelite prophets argued, stemmed from Egypt’s idolatry—from its submission to gods who would justify any sacrifice so long as it advanced the extension of the imperial realm of peace and kept the production of grain running at maximum capacity.
Was there a viable alternative to universal empire? The ancient Near East had much experience with localized political power in the form of city-states. But these were helpless before imperial armies and the ideology of universal empire that motivated them. It is in the Hebrew Bible that we find the first sustained presentation of a different possibility: a political order based on the independence of a nation living within limited borders alongside other independent nations.
By “nation,” I mean a people or group of peoples that are united—or that are capable of being united—around a shared history, language, or religion, permitting them to act effectively as a body for the common defense and other large-scale enterprises. The Bible systematically promotes the idea that members of a nation (Hebrew,goy) should regard one another as “brothers,” and the Mosaic law directs all Israelites to join in establishing what would today be called a national state. The king of such a state would be drawn “from among your brothers.” Its prophets, too, would be “from among you, from among your brothers.” And so would its priests, appointed to guard the traditional laws of the nation and teach them to the king “so that his thoughts not be lifted above his brothers.” Moreover, Moses sets boundaries for Israel, instructing his people to keep their hands off of the lands of neighboring kingdoms like Moav, Edom, and Ammon, which deserve their own independence. As he tells them in God’s name:
Take good heed of yourselves therefore. Meddle not with [the children of Esau], for I will not give you of their land. No, not so much as a foot’s breadth. Because I have given Mt. Seir to Esau for a possession. . . . Do not harass Moav, nor contend with them in battle, for I will not give you of their land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the children of Lot for a possession. . . . And when you come near, opposite the children of Ammon, harass them not, nor contend with them, for I will not give you of the land of the children of Ammon any possession, for I have given it to the children of Lot for a possession.
Nor are these passages unique. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, we find that the political aspiration of the prophets of Israel is not empire but a free nation living in justice and peace amid other free nations.
The Bible thus puts a new political conception on the table: a state of a single people that is united, self-governing, and uninterested in bringing its neighbors under its own rule. This state is governed not by foreigners responsible to a ruler in a distant land but by kings and governors, priests and prophets, drawn from the ranks of the nation itself: elites that are, for just this reason, thought to be better able to stay in touch with the needs of their own people, their “brothers,” especially the less fortunate among them.
In addition, because the Israelite king is merely one of the people, and not the representative of some abstract universal ambition, his powers can be circumscribed to prevent abuse. Unlike the kings of Egypt or Babylonia, the Israelite king under the Mosaic constitution is not empowered to make the laws, which are the heritage of his nation and not subject to his whim. Nor does he have the power to appoint the priesthood, thereby making law and religion subservient to him. In the same way, the Mosaic law limits the king’s right to tax and enslave the people, just as the limitations on Israel’s borders prevent the king from embracing the dream of universal conquest.
It is important to notice that the Israelites’ conception of the nation has nothing to do with biology, or what we call race. For biblical nations, everything depends on a shared understanding of history, language, and religion that is passed from parents to children, but which outsiders can join as well. Thus the book of Exodus teaches that there were many Egyptians who attached themselves to the Hebrew slaves in fleeing Egypt, and that they received the Ten Commandments (more accurately translated as the “Ten Precepts”) at Sinai with the rest of Israel. Similarly, Moses invites the Midianite sheikh Jethro to join the Jewish people. And Ruth the Moabite becomes part of Israel by declaring “your people will be my people and your God will be my God”—her son being the forefather of King David himself.
But the ability of Israel to bring foreign-born individuals into its ranks always depends on these individuals’ willingness to accept Israel’s God, its view of history, and its laws. Without embracing these elements of the national identity, foreigners will not be able to contribute to Israel’s cohesion and strength in times of hardship. They will not be part of the Israelite nation.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART II TOMORROW
Yoram Hazony is president of the Herzl Institute and the author of God and Politics in Esther, The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, and The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel’s Soul. His essays on history, politics, and religion appear in a wide variety of publications. His next book, Empire and Nation, is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.
But the “elite” wants to be transnational through international companies and organizations! At the expense of the rest!
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