Response to Israel's War for Western Civilization

Here is my response at 7:00 PM to part of the comment thread on Israel's War for Western Civilization:

Nikos Sotirakopoulos: The war Israel has been fighting is not merely a regional conflict, but a rare, civilizational-level war. It is a clash between two fundamentally different ways of understanding what it means to live life as a human.

@davidartzy6732: My correction as an Israeli: like everyone else we are fighting first and foremost for ourselves. The fact that we are more Western oriented due to religion and culture results in that the outcome of our struggle benefits the West as a whole. I think putting it in these terms is more accurate and relatable. No, we are not sending our children to war for some Christian Londoner, nor for some Jewish Londoner, we our doing for us here. The fact that ppl there don't understand the impact on them is the issue.

@roberthanley: Israel is not just Western-oriented: it is Western — it is culturally European.

Israel's fight has nothing whatsoever to do with religion; only Hamas is fighting for religion.

Israel is fighting for survival as part of Western civilization, and the rest of the civilized world looks up to Israel as leading the struggle for the future of Western civilization.

@dovbarleib3256:​​ @roberthanley Interestingly, Israel more than ever is more Jewish than it was before 7 Oct. Perhaps the freedom of thought is an emanation of the fountain of Judaism? A tenet of serving G-d at a fundamental level?

@permavegan: @dovbarleib3256 Great question for contemplation! As a Gentile God-fearer weighing in from New York, I tend to think Hashem is working a uniquely Jewish miracle in and through Israel that transcends East, West, North and South. I understand the importance of Israel's success to the integrity of Western civilization - all the more so since October 7 - but I am reluctant to call Israel (or the dynamic freedom of thought therein) a Western or European cultural project. I am not sure that Hashem, the Jews, the Hebrew language, the land of Israel and the Torah are properly classified in this way. How do Israeli rabbis teach it?

@roberthanley: @dovbarleib3256 Hebrews — I prefer to avoid the term Jews because it conflates religion and ethnicity — have shown themselves throughout history to be the most brilliant people on the planet in the absence of monotheistic (Jewish) religion: Spinoza, Einstein, etc.  Likewise, modern-day Israel was brought into being by mostly secular Hebrews from Enlightenment-based Europe (as opposed to Orthodox Jews), using scientific education and hard work to turn mosquito-infested marshlands (where no Arabs wanted to live) into fertile farmland. Personally, I am not a fan of religion but I am very much an admirer of your people. You can give the credit to a God if you wish, but I give the credit to you as a human. Kind regards.

@permavegan: @roberthanley "Hebrews" as you are using it in this contemporary context sounds a bit off to my gentile American ears, though I get your difficulty handling the complexities of Jewish identity. Is it possible you are implying too sharp a dichotomy between the secular Jew and the observant Jew, and between the scientific enlightenment and the revelation at Sinai, to drink more fully from the wellspring of God's Jewish genius and thereby see the importance of Israel to the success of world (not just Western) civilization and history?