How the Fate of the West is Tied to the Fate of the Jewish Nation
Why is Israel alone forced to justify its existence and questioned when it stands up to those who would annihilate it? Why was a worldwide campaign of hatred that reeked of anti-Semitism unleashed on Israel when it responded to the October 7, 2023, attack, while there was no criticism of Hamas? Why has the U.N. censured the Jewish state more times than any other nation, even China, North Korea, and Cuba combined?
The answer runs deeper than geopolitics, says conservative commentator and legal scholar Josh Hammer in his debut book Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West. Western civilization is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and its enemies know well that to deny the existence of God and destroy individual rights, private property, and freedom, they must first destroy the Jews. Ergo, he argues, the preservation of the West is contingent on the welfare of the Jewish people and the Jewish state of Israel.
It was the People of the Book who first introduced the world to monotheism, and along with it, to ethical and legal codes that became the basis for the establishment and preservation of all civilizations... Many of America’s Founding Fathers admired Jewish history, culture, and its legal and moral teachings...
The other big ideas that Judaism has contributed to the West, writes Hammer, are of individual dignity, self-worth, community, and collective holiness. The commandments emphasize a balance not only between the individual and the community, but also between the very human pursuit of pleasure and the ideals of work, duty, and honor...
Hammer warns Christians of the need to recognize how not only Jewish culture but Jews themselves are, in a way, the sine qua non of Western civilization...
... Therefore, for the God-less, postmodern ideologies of moral relativism, writes Hammer, the Jew is a prize target...
Today, with the denial of God, we are inching towards a paganism that manifests in self-worship (my gender, my skin color, my intersectionality)...
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