Rabbis over the past century warned us
As violence escalates in Gaza with over 61,000 casualties reported, let’s remind ourselves of the wise words of our rabbis of the past, who warned that a Jewish state would only lead to wars, and taught us that the path of peace is always preferable.
The Brisker Rav wrote in January 1948, “A Jewish state will mean a situation of warfare, and who knows what the end will be?” (Letter to Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky, printed in Uvdos Vehanhagos v. 4 p. 201)
Rabbi Avigdor Miller wrote: "The State of Israel solves nothing. All 'problems' remain the same, and new ones are created: 1) The Arabian lands have been rendered uninhabitable for Jews; 2) constant wars with neighbors must be waged, incurring huge military expenditures and loss of many lives, in addition to constant peril; 3) it has exacerbated Jew-hatred in the nations, due to Arab influence and also to embroilment with the foreign policy of the nations; 4) and the proponents of the State of Israel attempt to kindle a fire under the Jews in all lands in order to make their position untenable so that they emigrate to augment the population of the new State. (Sing You Righteous, p. 25, paragraphs 46-48.)
Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe, aside from his voluminous writings on the subject of the State of Israel and how it violates the Torah and brings no benefit to Jews, wrote specifically that in cases where the state faces a military attack, they should seek peace rather than victory: “Would it occur to anyone that if there is any way to work toward saving Jewish lives in any way that does not involve war, and to avoid spilling Jewish blood, and avoid bringing the entire Jewish people into danger, that we should fight? Clearly, no authoritative rabbi of the past would have permitted war, much less demanded it.” (Al Hageulah V’al Hatemurah, Chapter 47)
And this principle goes back to the beginning of Jewish history. When the Jews in the desert were told that they needed to wait 40 years to enter the Holy Land, some of them rebelled and made an authorized invasion of the land. (The Targum Yonasan on Shir Hashirim 2:7 lists this as a violation of the Three Oaths.) Moshe warned the people, “Why are you transgressing the word of Hashem? And it will not be successful! Do not go up, for Hashem is not in your midst, so that you do not get defeated by your enemies.” (Bamidbar 14:45) The people went up anyway, and were defeated by the Amakelites and the Canaanites.
In 1929, when innocent Jews in Hebron and Jerusalem were attacked by Arab mobs, Rabbi Chaim Elazar Shapiro, the Munkaczer Rebbe (1872-1937), interpreted the above verses from the Torah as a prophecy about these events: The Zionists went up to Eretz Yisroel with a strong hand to found colonies and fight with the gentiles. They defiantly ascended to the mountaintop, against the command of Hashem Yisborach through our Sages and our forefathers, who warned that this is not the way, and said that their end would be bitter, G-d forbid. They went in the path of strength and brazenness, as Rashi explains the word “they invaded.” "Yet the ark of the covenant of Hashem - the holy Torah, for we believers have nothing else left over but this Torah - and Moshe - the Torah leaders and tzaddikim, who cried out against the Zionists and did not ascend with them or join them - did not move from the midst of the camp - the loyal, believing Jews…. “And they smote them and pounded them until Chormah” - as unfortunately occurred with the destruction and the killings in Jerusalem, the Holy City, near the Western Wall through these wicked people. May Hashem save us and help us and redeem us soon, in our days, for the sake of His name and His Torah, with love." (Chaim Veshalom, Parshas Shlach)
Rabbi Elazar Shach said after the 1967 war, “"And did they indeed save us? Did they help us? All the troubles and problems they caused with their evil actions! … They saved us? They caused all the troubles of the war! After they brought us into a war, we needed to be saved. But if not for them…"
The State regards itself as the "protector" of the Jewish people. In fact, after the 1967 war, this was a common slogan displayed on Israeli houses – “Israel, trust in the IDF” an explicit attempt to replace the Biblical verse “Israel, trust in Hashem” with the modern-day version of idolatry. Contemporary Zionist leaders, despite usually moderating their wording for peripheral reasons, still very much believe that they are the guardians of the Jewish people.
In fact, Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch attributes some of the blame for the tragedies of October 7th to a blasphemous statement made publicly just a few weeks before by the current Prime Minister of the State, who explicitly attributed the safety of Jews to his government and not to Hashem. The public, in not coming out in public against this heresy, was part of the trigger that brought disaster upon many of those who this Prime Minister claims to protect.
From the point of view of the Torah, the State of Israel is the problem, not the solution. The State will continually be embroiled in war for as long as it exists - because it stands for mass rebellion against Hashem, and seeks to replace the Jewish people as the people of the Torah with a secular version of a nation like all nations.
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