Meir Kahane long argued (and I concur) for divesting from America. Three to five billion dollars in aid is not critical to Israel. If we rejected U.S. aid, we could insist on no subsidies to Arabs, either—and foreign money is critical to them. We could even call for an embargo on arms sales to the Middle East. Israel produces reasonable weapons; the point is not to accumulate more but to stop Arabs from acquiring modern weapons. U.S. aid ties our hands politically and militarily. Since 1948 and, especially, 1956 America has imposed unprofitable armistices on Israel. The Middle East today would be very different had we marched into Cairo or carpet-bombed Tehran. Now instead you have the Islamic Brotherhood definitely coming to power in nuclear Egypt, and nuclear mullahs are not far behind. Last, but perhaps first, is national pride. We shouldn’t depend on aid, absolutely not. We depended on Egypt, and Assyria, and Rome, and Persia before, and lost. Protectors have limited interest in their vassals and turn on them often: consider how very pro-Israel France became very pro-Arab in two decades.

It all comes down to: why be Jewish? If we want a gemütlich, ethnically blind democracy, what are we doing in Canaan? Let’s settle near Boston. I love the place. If, however, we honestly say that the whole point of being Jewish is separation (or isolation, as Rav Kahane translated it), things look different. Israel should not cling to foreign sponsors. She should not accept Arabs in the Knesset; this is a Jewish state with Jewish culture and Jewish laws. Those who want sharia can go to the fifty-two or so Muslim states, and those who want democracy—elsewhere. They are not wrong or bad; Israel is just not the place for them.