Imagine an ice cream shop with no ice cream or a zoo with no animals. Could such things exist without the components that are their identifying trademarks? Unlikely!
So, too, is the reason that the idea of the nation of Israel, without its connection to the Jewish people or the Jewish homeland, cannot possibly be an alternative reality.
Yet, this is the supposed objection to some of Israel’s harshest critics, who will not come right out and express the notion that Israel has no right to exist. Instead, they dishonestly say that Israel can exist, but just not as a Jewish state. Why is that a dishonest statement? Because the two cannot be intrinsically separated.
Israel only exists as the Jewish homeland – a refuge and shelter from a world that was unable and unwilling to provide a safe haven for the people whom God chose as His own. Knowing that others would not absorb our kind for too long, it is the reason that the Almighty bequeathed this land to the people He created from the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Those descendants would eventually need a place where they could be themselves, fulfill their particular destiny, and remain distinct among all the other nations of the world.
The real irony, in all of this, is that the Jews were never permanently welcomed anywhere, and, now that they have their own homeland, they’re being told that they cannot maintain that it remains as a place identified with them. It’s as if nothing will satisfy Israel’s detractors, short of making sure that Israel actually doesn’t exist. Because if it can’t be the Jewish homeland, then we’re right back to where we started, residing among others who will eventually turn on us.
Criticism of Israel as a Jewish homeland
So, who is espousing this novel idea that Israel drop its last name – no longer referring to itself as the Jewish homeland?
Three individuals immediately come to mind. The first is New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who, while appearing on Good Day New York in June 2025, was asked by co-host Rosanna Scotto if he supported Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. In response, he said he supported the right of Israel to exist, but not as a Jewish state.
When asked why – he responded that Israel should not have “a hierarchy of citizenship based on religion or anything else and that equality should be enshrined for everyone, as it is in America.” youtube.com/watch?v=Dgm_v-iYUSk
Such an answer reveals the lack of understanding when it comes to Israel “not being reckoned with the nations” (Numbers 23:9). He doesn’t comprehend that it was established as a light to the nations whose people would not only be a blessing to all mankind, but also instruct them in the ways of the Lord (Genesis 12:2, Isaiah 2:3).
No other nation ever had that type of calling, one that would be separate and distinguished from all people. To suggest that they be like everyone else is to advise God that He got it wrong.
Then there is the controversial, left-wing former speaker of the Knesset, Avraham Burg, who, during a 2007 interview, stated that “Israel, as a Jewish state, was the key to its end, attacking the Law of Return, citing it as part of the problem.”
Described by Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Zvika Klein as a “fringe Israeli,” he explains how Tucker Carlson searched for such a person who would validate his own distorted position on Israel, calling it “truth” (“Tucker Carlson sold America a fringe Israeli as the voice of Israel,” March 25).
The whole concept of Israel existing, but not within the confines of a Jewish state, has been expressed on multiple occasions by Carlson, whose understanding of the Jewish scriptures sharply veers into his own warped opinion, heard in his recent interview with Ambassador Mike Huckabee, as he questioned whether or not any state really has a right to exist.
Separating the Jewish nation from Israel
Carlson does not see the biblical narrative as one that has an authoritative divine mandate, promising the land of Zion to the heirs of Abraham. By his reckoning, a Jewish homeland is not a legitimate entity, because he’s not even sure who those heirs are or whether they can adequately prove ownership.
In essence, he is questioning the right of any individual to even claim identification as a bona fide Jew. While that may not be Burg’s viewpoint, it’s clear that he also does not have an understanding of his destiny as part of the Jewish people, along with their particular calling and place among the nations.
While these three individuals are certainly not unique in holding the position that Israel should exist in a different constellation similar to other nations, they represent the aspiration to separate Jews from their calling.
They may not know it, but this objective is not much different than the multiple attempts, over many centuries, to annihilate the Jewish people. Used by the enemies of God, the concept is that if Israel no longer exists, they prevent the fulfillment of the divine plan and purpose for a world badly in need of redemption.
So, while the separation of Israel from its historical and biblical roots is a newly packaged concept, the endgame is the same. It’s an attempt at thwarting the Creator by way of redefining the only nation called by God to point the way to Him.
When you look at it that way, you understand the significance of why there is such a concerted effort to modify the Jewish State of Israel, by making it sound as if the “Jewish” part is the only impediment to its full acceptance and legitimacy. It is not!
Darkness will continually search for a way to obscure the light. If it’s not the Jewish component, it will be something else. Fortunately, these attempts to undo what God established, through the people He chose, are easily recognizable as a deception, designed to allow evil to win.
The good news is that the God of Israel will never permit that to happen, because He will never be separated from the people or the land that He ordained from before the foundations of the earth!
Israel will remain the Jewish homeland, and that’s the end of the story!
The writer is a former Jerusalem elementary and middle school principal. She is the author of Mistake-Proof Parenting, based on the time-tested wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs, available on Amazon.