What’s the point of maintaining an Israeli state? Neturei Karta is right: Jews have more rights as dhimmi under Muslim jurisdiction. When the country belonged to Arabs, Jews could settle freely in Hebron or any other place. Jewish education was religious or patriotic, whatever the Jews chose. Every Jewish group enjoyed autonomy, low taxes, absence of conscription, and until the advent of Zionism—safety. Jews were free to speak Hebrew, lived in isolated communities without Arabs, maintained friendly relations with Muslims, and had no occupational restrictions.

A third of all Jews were exterminated in WWII. Another third died out in the oven of American assimilation. The remaining third was gathered in Israel from all corners of the earth. Israel drained all the Jewish communities. The preconditions look messianic: two thirds of Jews have been annihilated, and the condition of the remaining third is hopelessly bad. Israel’s only purpose is to preserve some Jews from universal assimilation. When Jews are no longer religious, Israel can at least provide them with national identity. Even if the Israeli experiment fails, the Jews who stream out of the country will still preserve a post-shock sense of identity perhaps sufficient to guard them against assimilation until religious identity is acceptably redefined.