The Torah generally prohibits murder, though it allows for the killing of enemies. To kill an enemy while defending oneself or one’s dear ones is reasonable: the aggressor’s life is taken to avoid the loss of one’s own life. The Torah, however, permits and even encourages the taking of enemy lives in an expansionist war. Proper expansionist wars defend the core values of Jews, their spiritual essence rather than their bodies. Expanding the land of Israel is sufficiently important that the prohibition of murder is lifted for tha purpose. History provides no right to the land. Rather, countries are acquired with actionable systems of values and the will to fight.

It is ridiculous to claim the land because the nation lived there nineteen centuries ago. Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, however, never ceased. Jews prayed to Jerusalem and dreamed of returning there. We didn’t abandon the land two millennia ago, but took the land with us into Exile and kept it in our hearts. Arabs settled the physical hills, but the real hills of Judea were in Jewish ghettos. We carried Jerusalem with us as our ancestors had carried the tabernacle. These arguments are important for Jews, but they mean nothing to Arabs. Naturally, they don’t care about our souls and longings. Jews want this land because we have always lived in it, physically or spiritually. Jews are powerful enough to take the land from Arabs whatever they think of our moral arguments.

Is an approach based solely on power immoral? That depends on your definition of morality. In the theoretical milieu where nations show compassion to each other and value others’ interests above their own, power as the sole benchmark of relations is immoral. If, however, morality is defined as historically acceptable behavior, then balance of power is the only moral approach—and the one the Arabs subscribe to. At most, nations historically have mitigated power considerations based on their systems of values—not those of their opponents. Jews, from their perspective, are conducting a highly moral war for religiously and ideologically significant land. What the enemy thinks, we don’t care.

What is the alternative to the Jewish claim to the land? Arabs never settled the Palestinian lowlands which are the core of modern Israel. Arabs began developing the plains only during the late nineteenth-century citrus boom. A few notables, not Arab communities, owned the plain—unlike the hills areas, which were held by Arab villages as communal homestead property. Palestinian Arabs lack any of the traits of a nation: dialect, culture, music, or law. Their system of governance amounted to village autonomy, which is a far cry from framework of a state. The Palestinians now act like a nation and should be dealt with as a nation, but Jews need not recognize their fake national aspirations.

Chicago is a distinctive city but clearly not entitled to statehood. Spain rejects nationhood for Basques, as Russia does for the Chechens, Turkey for the Kurds, and America for the Red Indians. Even a long history, administrative autonomy, and a distinctive language and culture do not automatically allow for statehood. What does allow? Power. The ability to claim and realize one’s rights. Viability. In 1948, Americans recognized Jews as smart, distinctive, and hardworking—but thought us not to be viable, and thus remained skeptical about the establishment of a Jewish state. We proved ourselves viable in several wars, and America changed its attitude. The Palestinian Arabs have failed to stage a single decent revolt, and don’t deserve a state.