In repeated confrontations with the Israeli army, most recently in Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, the Religious Zionists have shown that they would prefer civil war in Israel to peace with the Palestinians. That is because these Jews define their national identity in terms not of civic loyalty to the state but of religious obligation to the land. For them the state of Israel has no intrinsic value, other than to serve as a vehicle for the settlement of Jews. Their national narrative begins not with Dreyfus and Herzl but with Moses and Aaron. Their divine mission is to ensure that
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