Historical Reflection on Jewish National Identity and Understanding Israel’s Middle East Policy

Joseph Kwon (Editorial Board Member)

1. Introduction

Most nations conduct their foreign policy with goals such as expanding national interests, achieving economic benefits, and strengthening international prestige. However, since its founding, Israel has pursued foreign policy with survival itself as its top priority (Webster University Global Policy Horizons Lab, 2023).

Fundamentally, every state begins from the most basic condition of survival within the international community. Yet most nations do not regard survival as their sole or highest goal, since under ordinary circumstances—absent extreme situations such as war, economic collapse, or regime overthrow—state continuity is generally ensured.

Israel, however, is an exception. From its inception, it has made survival itself the foremost objective of its foreign and, particularly, Middle East policy. This marks the essential distinction between Israel’s policy and that of most other countries. To understand this difference, it is insufficient to analyze only present phenomena; rather, one must reflect on the millennia of historical experience of the Jewish people. Within that long history, the repeated experiences of exile, persecution, massacre, and the Holocaust have become the foundation upon which Israel’s modern national policy is built.

Within the theories of international relations, realism posits survival as the highest value of the state. Liberalism, by contrast, emphasizes that states also pursue economic interdependence and cooperation within international institutions, beyond mere survival or national interest. From this theoretical perspective, Israel serves as one of the most representative cases of realism in practice. In reality, Israel’s overall policy prioritizes security and survival over international norms or institutions, and it is often willing to endure global criticism if necessary to defend its national security interests.

Thus, from a realist standpoint, Israel’s every diplomatic move can be understood as a continuous sequence of strategic choices revolving around the absolute imperative of state survival. Recognizing this allows us to understand why Israel often appears exceptional by international standards, and what deep historical and existential anxieties underlie such decisions.

Today, as antisemitism rapidly spreads worldwide, the persistence of Israel’s security policy can be explained in this context. The 77-year-long reserve mobilization system; the fact that middle-aged men in their 40s and 50s are still called up and fall in battle; the phenomenon of foreigners voluntarily enlisting in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF); the nation’s practice of relentlessly pursuing terrorists and demolishing their families’ homes; Yahya Sinwar’s 2023 “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation and the emphasis on taking as many hostages as possible; the significance of hostage issues; Israel’s preemptive strikes despite its army being officially called the “Defense Forces”; the debates within Israel over the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; the social functioning of a nation where 21% of the population (outside these territories) is Arab; and the wartime rallying cries such as “Am Yisrael Chai” (The people of Israel live), “Beyachad Nenatze’ach” (Together we will prevail), and “I stand with Israel”—all can be understood through this lens.

To properly comprehend these internal and external realities, one must grasp the perceptions of Israeli citizens themselves. The foreign policy of a modern representative democracy is deeply shaped by domestic politics, which in turn reflects citizens’ collective consciousness. This civic consciousness is the outcome of historical experience—of what lessons a community has learned from its past and how it has collectively interpreted and applied them.

In Israel’s case, understanding how the Jewish people responded to millennia of diaspora and antisemitism, and how these responses are embodied today, is essential.

The primary actors in Israel’s internal politics are the Jews. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the Jewish mindset—the Jewish spirit. As long as this spirit remains alive, the nation survives. And that spirit has been forged through history.

This article therefore examines how Israel’s society—rooted in the soil of Jewish history—has evolved through three phases:① Diaspora to Independence (1948),② Post-Independence to the 2020s: The Modern Israeli Spirit, and③ Post-2020: The Israeli Spirit amid Internal Division.Through these lenses, it seeks to interpret Israel’s behavior not only in Middle Eastern conflicts but also within broader global tensions.

2. From the Diaspora to Independence: The Historical Journey for Survival and the Formation of the Israeli Spirit

The two core concepts essential to understanding the Jewish people are antisemitism and survival.For thousands of years, Jews have faced an almost obsessive, persistent force intent on their annihilation.

In the present day, Hamas’s ultimate objective remains the denial of Israel’s very existence. Likewise, Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the resulting existential threat to Israel, the Arab–Israeli wars, the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany some seventy years ago, the medieval European inquisitions, forced conversions and expulsions, the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman Empire and the ensuing Diaspora, and even further back—the genocidal plot by Haman in the Book of Esther, the conflicts between the Moabites and Israel, and the struggle between Esau and Jacob—all form part of the collective memory deeply embedded in Jewish consciousness.While some of these are verifiable historical facts and others bear mythic dimensions, together they have operated as collective trauma whenever antisemitic incidents have arisen throughout history.

Across millennia, Jewish responses to antisemitism have been simple yet profound: to survive. To ensure that survival, the Jewish people historically adopted three main strategies:(1) Survival through separation, (2) Survival through assimilation, and (3) Survival through the struggle for a Jewish state (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2025).

(1) Survival through separation

This form of survival was an effort to preserve Jewish identity at all costs.The inseparability of Judaism and Jewishness today stems from the historical conviction that safeguarding religious identity was the key to collective survival.Following the Diaspora, Jewish communities scattered around the world often chose voluntary isolation.Such separation was common in premodern societies, where ethnic and religious distinctions were sharply maintained. Jews preserved their identity through minimal economic interaction with surrounding societies while maintaining strong internal cohesion.

Interestingly, what sustained the Jewish spirit over thousands of years was not a common spoken language such as Hebrew.Modern Hebrew itself was a revival, brought back from ritual and liturgical use in the 18th century by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (Jewish Virtual Library, n.d.).Most Diaspora Jews did not speak Hebrew, and thus the Hebrew and Aramaic scriptures were accessible only to rabbis.Sociologist Erich Fromm (1927) located the secret of Jewish spiritual endurance in the Sabbath.For Jews, the Sabbath was not merely a day of rest but a foretaste of divine rule—a temporal sign of ultimate hope.

Throughout centuries of hardship and change, Jews never abandoned their faith in the coming of the Messiah and the fulfillment of God’s kingdom.This hope was concretized through the observance of the Sabbath and the memory of Jerusalem, the city that embodied divine promise.The expectation that “one day, when God’s wrath has ended, we will return to Jerusalem, the Messiah will come, and God’s rule will be complete” became the axis of Jewish spiritual life.Judaism’s rejection of idolatry meant that its identity was maintained not through icons or images but through ritual time (the Sabbath) and sacred memory (Jerusalem).

(2) Survival through assimilation

The rise of modernity introduced a new concept—the citizen.After the Napoleonic era, this idea spread throughout Europe, asserting that individuals could enjoy civil rights regardless of ethnicity if they fulfilled their civic duties such as taxation and military service.This represented a revolutionary challenge to Jewish communities.Whereas in the Middle Ages they had survived through separation, the modern civil society opened the possibility of survival through integration.

The development of cities and the expansion of capitalist opportunity provided Jews with unprecedented social mobility.Many began to fulfill civic obligations and to claim the accompanying rights.This model proved successful and soon spread across Jewish communities in Europe.Assimilation, including intermarriage and cultural adaptation, appeared to offer a path toward safety and prosperity.

However, the Dreyfus Affair of the late 19th century shattered this illusion.In France, a Jewish army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, was wrongfully convicted of treason on the basis of flimsy evidence.Even after the real culprit was identified, the military sought to suppress the truth for reasons of institutional honor.Writer Émile Zola’s famous open letter, “J’accuse…!”, ignited national outrage, and Dreyfus was eventually exonerated.Witnessing the anti-Jewish mobs shouting “Death to the Jews!” during the trial, Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl, then serving as a Paris correspondent, was deeply shaken.He realized that no matter how loyally Jews assimilated into their host societies, antisemitism would never disappear.This revelation led him to propose modern Zionism, the political movement for the establishment of a Jewish state (Britannica, n.d.).

(3) Survival through nationhood

The Holocaust during World War II confirmed Herzl’s fears in the most horrific way.Even fully assimilated Jews were hunted down and exterminated based on ancestry.Herzl’s assertion—that the root of antisemitism lay in the absence of a Jewish state, and that only by establishing one could the Jewish people ensure their survival—was now seen as prophetic truth (Herzl, 1896).This conviction galvanized the global Zionist movement.

In 1948, the dream materialized: the State of Israel was born.From that moment onward, Israel’s policy orientation became unmistakable:to face threats with unity and strength, to compromise with no enemy, and to defend itself by its own power—for survival itself is victory.

Through this long historical process, the Jewish spirit forged in suffering transformed into the Israeli spirit, which remains the foundational ethos sustaining the modern State of Israel.

3. The State of Israel’s Post-1948 Ethos and Strategic Orientation

Following statehood, Israel’s governing ethos combined unyielding realism with a secular, humanistic utopianism (Ofek, 2018). Millennia of suffering—culminating in the civilizational rupture of the Holocaust—profoundly shook faith in divine providence and embedded the conviction that “only our own strength and solidarity can safeguard us.” Because everything was, in effect, a live-fire exercise, practical problem-solving took precedence over form, and a culture that valorized individual capability and creative initiative became a core social value. Within this climate emerged the notion of the “new Jew,” which permeated education and public life and provided the basis for a civic identity rooted in Zionist ideals (Cohen, 1998).

Even after independence, security and survival remained Israel’s paramount policy imperatives. The state had to endure the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, two Intifadas, numerous military operations and terrorist campaigns, and repeated threats of full-scale war—at least a dozen times. The post-Holocaust vow of “Never Again” took deep root at the heart of Israeli collective consciousness. Amid recurrent conflict, the values of liberty, self-reliance, and the right of self-defense were accentuated, and the imperative to “work and wage war simultaneously” shaped socialization within both society at large and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Israeli policy has been grounded not in vague optimism or rhetorical bravado but in rigorous realism. Consequently, the principles of “peace through strength”[1] and “if you desire peace, prepare for war”[2] crystallized as cornerstones of national security doctrine.

A further pillar of security has been the enhancement of national competitiveness—a composite encompassing not only economic growth but also international influence, intelligence capacity, and scientific-technological prowess. The Jewish tradition of inquiry and disputation has remained a crucial intellectual asset of the modern state. When confronted with problems, Israelis tend to pursue solutions through debate and provisional consensus, a style of reasoning that has yielded world-class achievements in science, technology, and philosophy. Here, “consensus” denotes not mere political compromise but a disciplined search for the context-appropriate optimum under changing conditions.

Israel lacks a single codified constitution. Instead, a norm of ceaseless deliberation aims to locate the best available answer for an evolving reality. This deliberative culture, fused with a civic ethic that respects divergent styles and viewpoints, underwrites a sense of communal mutualism (arevut)—the conviction that “all Israel are guarantors for one another.” Plural opinions may persist, yet in decisive moments the polity coheres, and duties and rights are applied with a perceived fairness. The ultimate rationale is the primal value of national survival, coupled with a sober recognition that, beyond the Jewish collective, allies may shift with circumstances—today’s friend can be tomorrow’s adversary (Kremnitzer, 2005).

Measured against its founding aims, this Zionist-based ideology has been broadly successful. Despite chronic threat, Israel not only survived but expanded its footing, transforming from a poor, developing polity into an advanced knowledge economy.

In the course of this evolution, even highly secular or avowedly atheistic Jews have, to varying degrees, internalized a sense of historical vocation as a chosen people. This was not merely a doctrinal revival; rather, the state’s secular growth and territorial consolidation appeared—even to the secular—to resonate with biblical prophecies, stirring religious emotion and wonder.[3]

MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images

4. Internal Identity Debates between Ultra-Orthodox and Secular Jews in the 2020s

A new variable has emerged in Israeli domestic politics: the demographic and political ascent of the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) community. At the time of Israel’s founding, ultra-Orthodox Jews constituted less than five percent of the population, and only about 400 yeshiva students were exempted from military service to dedicate themselves solely to Torah study (Shany & Lavi, 2024).

However, the Haredi population’s exceptionally high birth rate has steadily expanded its demographic and political influence within Israeli society. Over decades, ultra-Orthodox parties—holding the parliamentary balance of power (casting vote)—have leveraged their role to secure disproportionate political benefits relative to their population share (Israel Policy Forum, 2024).

As of today, approximately 20 percent of Israel’s Jewish population identifies as Haredi,[4] and projections indicate that by 2065, this share could exceed 40 percent if current trends persist (Rosenberg, 2020). In the 25th Knesset, Haredi parties now control roughly 15 percent of the seats (The Times of Israel, 2025). Consequently, they have evolved from mere coalition brokers into independent agenda-setting actors, increasingly capable of shaping the national policy trajectory (The Times of Israel, 2025).

The primary goal of ultra-Orthodox political movements is to ensure that Jewish life, as defined by Torah law (Halakha), is upheld at the national level. Their policies aim to strengthen religious observance by institutional means—such as enforcing public observance of the Sabbath, tightening kashrut regulations, and expanding the jurisdiction of rabbinical courts (ARZA, 2023).

Haredi theology holds that Torah study itself constitutes a spiritual shield for the nation; thus, they insist on maintaining military service exemptions for full-time scholars. In parallel, religious settlers—many aligned ideologically with Haredi and nationalist movements—seek legislation granting armed defense privileges for Jewish residents in settlements (Leykin, 2024).

The religious-nationalist agenda also promotes the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, justified through biblical-historical claims. It further envisions restoring Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount and even preparing for the reconstruction of the Third Temple, a notion that, while once fringe, is now entering public discourse (Jewish News Syndicate, 2025).

These developments have intensified the ideological confrontation between ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews, generating persistent internal divisions. The repercussions of this divide have become increasingly visible, especially since the Israel–Hamas war of October 7, 2023, which has reshaped both domestic politics and Israel’s external posture toward the broader Middle East.

5. Short-Term Outlook

The spirit of Israel fundamentally focuses on the survival and preservation of the Jewish people.This is not an imperial concept that embraces various nations and expands its borders.However, Israel pursues strengths that great empires in history have demonstrated—such as rationality, flexibility, innovativeness, and inclusiveness toward diversity—because it understands from history that these factors strengthen the competitiveness of the community.Therefore, Israel possesses the strengths of an empire, including an international sense, but does not pursue expansion like an empire.

However, due to its high birth rate, the position of Orthodox religious Jews is gradually strengthening over time, and the direction they pursue continues to collide with that of existing Israeli society.Orthodox religious Jews maintain their community based on faith, oppose mandatory education in secular subjects such as mathematics, English, and science, and adhere to their own worldview.Furthermore, they apply religious values to actual politics and pursue a theocratic form of government. As a result, Israel’s rationality, flexibility, inclusiveness toward diversity, and innovativeness are gradually weakening, and the debate between secular and religious Jewish groups will intensify.Although this internal identity debate will continue, it is highly likely to remain largely parallel, without convergence.

Under such circumstances, it is expected that issues related to the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Temple Mount will increase further. In fact, the July 23 parliamentary announcement of a bill to annex Gaza and the West Bank is being promoted despite concerns and opposition from secular Jews, because of the parliamentary political structure of Israel (Pellman & Novik, 2025). In addition, the movement to build the Third Temple on the Temple Mount is gradually emerging as a key agenda item, as it continues to be exposed to the media by religious politicians (Summers, 2025).

At the same time, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policies, such as the Abraham Accords, are not all based on religious ideology.On one hand, some interpret Israel’s actions as an effort not only to maintain its position in the Middle East but also to dominate Middle Eastern hegemony and establish itself as a major actor. In other words, this can be understood as a move toward pursuing national prosperity beyond mere survival (Ailam, 2025).

Overall, the hardline right-wing policies of Jewish religious groups take the same hardline stance on the Palestinian issue.Policies such as West Bank settlement construction and the annexation of the Gaza Strip shake the long-standing status quo, accelerating anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment in the international community. In particular, the recent spread of antisemitism globally is being reinforced by an alliance between Muslim immigrant groups and left-wing groups representing minorities, due to the increase in Muslim immigration. As provocative images and incitements are disseminated through social media, the influence of these movements is likely to grow even stronger.

Moreover, in Europe and the United States—where globalization was once led—far-right nationalist parties are coming to power or emerging as major political forces, resulting in heightened hostility toward immigrants and refugees.Within this international trend, antisemitic sentiment is also spreading into American society.

If this antisemitism accelerates further, approximately 7.5 million Jews in the United States[5] may potentially return to Israel.Among them, around 871,000 are Messianic Jews who believe in Jesus (LifeWay Research, 2020).Considering the characteristics of ordinary Jews other than these groups, if their return to Israel—or their influence in various forms—increases, it could serve as a new variable capable of overcoming the internal identity confusion in Israel caused by the population increase of Orthodox religious Jews.

The global spread of antisemitism is also causing anxiety within Israeli society about the weakening of pro-Israel forces in the international community.Except within Israel itself, Jews increasingly feel that nowhere in the world is truly safe.

Within the Christian world, interpretations concerning Israel will also gradually become more divided and controversial. In particular, within Middle Eastern Arab Christian communities, the issue of Israel will become an increasingly tangible and significant subject of discussion.

References

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[1] This is an expression used by Prime Minister Netanyahu, but it is a concept that is commonly used by realist international political theorists of the 20th century.

[2] This is an ancient Roman proverb that often appears in Israeli news columns.

[3] When the Israeli army recaptured East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War, the Third Middle East War of 1967, many secular Jewish soldiers who arrived at the Western Wall for the first time said, “I do not believe in God, but today, I am speaking with Him.”Such expressions gave even secular Jews in Israel a certain spiritual inspiration.

[4] As of December 2023, according to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) of Israel, the Jewish population of Israel is 7,208,000.According to the latest report by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), the ultra-Orthodox population is 1,390,000.Converted to percentages, the proportion of ultra-Orthodox Jews among the total Jewish population is 19.3%.

[5] The Jewish population in the United States varies depending on the statistical source.According to Pew Research Center (2020), the Jewish population in the United States is about 7.5 million.The Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University (2020) estimates about 7.6 million, while the Jewish Agency (2023) reports approximately 6.3 million.This paper uses the figure from Pew Research Center.