There's an old tale about a wealthy sorceress who promised a Jewish sage she could train cats to stand upright and serve at a fancy dinner. Everything went according to plan until a mouse appeared. The rest, as they say, is history.
A century ago, Britain and France attempted their own feat of sorcery in the Middle East. They drew borders, divided lands, crowned kings, and transformed Arab tribes into modern nation-states with carefully carved boundaries. Simultaneously, they repeatedly reduced the borders of the Jewish homeland - which, according to the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate, was meant to be the Jewish state. They shaped the region as they pleased, seemingly proving that Western powers could create reality from thin air.
But Britain and France proved no more capable than that sorceress trying to train her cats. Natural ethnic connections to land, and the delicate, complex relationships between geography, society, religion, and governance can't be engineered by rational minds that think they can trade in roots, identities, and faith like Manhattan real estate.
After everyone had grown accustomed to the illusion of this engineered Middle East, Shimon Peres emerged with his own vision. He believed he could improve upon the British-French experiment: while they merely drew borders, crowned kings, and divided lands before departing - leaving the Middle East to simmer in a century of bloodshed and conflict - Peres thought he could make the wolf and lamb shake hands, make peace, and serve together at the same party.
His "New Middle East" tried to strip us of thousands of years of roots, belonging, identity, and purpose - everything we'd preserved through millennia of exile - replacing it with a fabricated, watered-down universal identity devoid of meaning.
When Peres's experiment failed and rivers of blood began flowing again, his successors repeated the familiar refrain of the Left since the first Communist revolution: "It failed because it wasn't done correctly; this time we'll find a new messiah who'll do it differently, and we'll succeed." No matter how many times it fails, you can't convince them that the next person will also fail in trying to turn cats into a wait staff. The contempt for human nature has never been more jarring, sad, and ridiculous.
Everyone forgot the ancient, natural reality: the bone-deep connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. The Maharal of Prague said repeatedly about Jewish existence in exile: "The artificial cannot endure." Writing 400 years before Israel's establishment, he understood with remarkable spiritual clarity what Western logic hasn't learned: you can move and exile peoples, but you can't defeat the Creator's wisdom in nature.
Today's Middle East has returned to its original components: Islamic tribes and an ancient Jewish people returning to their land. This isn't about two secular nation-states trying to settle border disputes; it's about a profound religious question connected to Jerusalem and Abraham's continuing purpose in the world. Those who don't understand this will keep producing intelligence assessments as reliable as trained cats.
Our current war began at our weakest point, with devastating losses and existential threats from the most predictable front. We've faced months requiring tremendous courage and soul-shaking sacrifice.
But rather than declaring another "New Middle East," we've focused on internal national renewal, reconnecting with the old - the sound of the shofar, the Shema Yisrael, the ancient roots binding us to this land and to each other.
We haven't been tempted to return to the intoxicating drug of invented partnerships in a "New Middle East." The pains of war are preferable to such delusional fantasies.
What's truly new is the stripping away of false masks created to give us an artificial identity. And from our old roots, something new is indeed blossoming - bringing comfort, prosperity, hope, and faith for life and peace.
This was written by Ezra Hyman for Path Pavers, and republished here with permission. (https://www.solelim-derech.co.il/)
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