On November 10, 2025, Israel's President Isaac Herzog unapologetically stated that Zionism is "the national liberation movement of the Jewish people; a return to an indigenous homeland after millennia of persecution."
This statement follows the response of his father, Chaim Herzog (then Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations) in 1975 to an antagonistic UN General Assembly on its shameful resolution that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination":
"Zionism is nothing more – and nothing less – than the Jewish people's sense of origin and destination in the land linked eternally with its name."
These two assertions 50 years apart, from father and son -- both serving as presidents of Israel in their times -- could not make any clearer: Israel is the rightful and eternal ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. Any notion to the contrary must therefore be considered a "direct assault on the Jewish people's identity, history, and fundamental right to self-determination."
Much of the world nevertheless seems eager to believe lies about Israel being a "racist," "apartheid," "genocidal" and the domain of oppressor settler-colonialists -- despite the inconvenient fact that the Jews fought colonialism, administered by the British, and still being inflicted, although at least now, mercifully, from afar.
Jews have been rooted to Israel (Zion) for nearly 4,000 years, backed by a promise in Genesis 15:18 that God made to the ancient fathers of all Jews: Abraham:
"On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: 'To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.'"
(New King James translation)
Muslims have been around only since the exploits of Mohammed -- who died in 632 AD. All the same, there seem to have been some extraordinary efforts to predate events and ascribe an Islamic identity to Jesus (Qur'an 3:52), who died well before 632 AD, and even to the Jewish patriarch, Abraham:
"Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but he was one inclining toward truth, a Muslim [submitting to Allah]. And he was not of the polytheists."
(Qur'an 3:67, Sahih International translation)
What is accurate is that Abraham, like other Jews, was not a polytheist.
Theodore Herzl, in 1897, in Switzerland, at the First Zionist Congress, founded modern political Zionism, after seeing how easily France could betray its Jews during the false charges of treason in court-martial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who was unjustly sent to prison for five years.
At the time, Herzl saw a similar scapegoating of Jews as prevail today:
- Jews were being persecuted in Western Europe for being Jews, particularly in Germany and Austria as well as in England and France.
- Many Jews in Eastern Europe were persecuted, particularly in Russia.
- Few world leaders endorsed the idea of a Jewish state. German Kaiser Wilhelm II supported the idea for a few weeks, possibly as a way of ridding Germany of Jews, but backed out as soon as the Ottoman Empire rejected the idea.
Eventually, 50 years after the 1897 Zionist Congress, the United Nations voted for the creation of the Jewish state. Herzl's dream became a reality: the age-old prayer, "Next year in Jerusalem," became a reality. It is this reality that much of the world now seeks to destroy.
"We are not interlopers. We are not colonizers. We are not strangers to the land of Israel. The land of Israel and the people of Israel stand together. It's part of the same equation, and they can't be separated," stated Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter.
It would be considered laughable for the natives of any other country to be asked to defend their right to exist; why are Jews expected, after almost 4,000 years on the land, to explain their rights to Israel being their homeland? Nevertheless, many politicians in today's societies keep trying to put Jews on the defensive as they never would if their own countries' "right to exist" were questioned. Does anyone ask if Germany has a right to exist? Or Kazakhstan?
The late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel stated in 1978 that, over many thousands of years, "the Jew has been at the mercy of a society in which persecuting him first and murdering him later has at times led to sainthood or power."
It is for this reason that Zionism is essential to the Jewish people, Wiesel continued:
"There was a time when the Jews of Germany were told: We have nothing against you, our resentment is directed solely against the Jews of Poland, who refuse to be assimilated. Later the Jews of France were told: You have nothing to fear, our measures are aimed only at German Jews, they are too assimilated. Later the Hungarian Jews were reassured: We are not interested in you but in your coreligionists in France; they are making trouble there...
"It was all a lie, and now we know it. They meant all of us, everywhere and always."
To live in Israel as a Zionist is, Wiesel said, "a badge of honor."
The land of Israel has been at the core of Jewish identity ever since each of the twelve tribes were allocated specific lands of their own. To the early Israelites, now Jews, their land meant everything. Canadian Rabbi Tzvi Freeman wrote:
"In Biblical Israel, every citizen was landed. If you were a descendant of one of the twelve tribes, you owned a plot of land. If you sold it, it came back to you—or to your inheritors—on the jubilee year, which occurred every 50 years. You were tied to the land and the land was tied to you. Inheritance of land was through the paternal line—just as tribal affiliation is patrilineal."
In view of today's uncomfortable reality that jihadists do not seem even slightly interested in disarming or giving up murdering Jews, it appears that a strong and secure Israel will come only through a dynamic policy of self-defence -- one that will be able to meet those striving for the country's elimination with determination. Israel's immediate enemy is violent extremist Islam -- particularly the brand espoused by ideological offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Qatar, Syria and Iran. Their worldview seems to be that "Islam is a faith and a ritual, a nation and a nationality, a religion and a state, spirit and deed, holy text and sword." In other words, a totalitarian and overbearing force, merging state, politics, and religion under a militant theocracy subject to Sharia law, any contravention of which might mean death.
The world is not just getting less safe for Jews. It is also rapidly becoming less safe for Christians, Hindus and Muslims deemed by other Muslims to be not Muslim enough (such as here, here and here). Unfortunately, many in the West appear not to believe that yet. Meanwhile, the doctrines of the Muslim Brotherhood are being spread throughout Europe and Canada, and most recently in New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas, the heart of America, and Australia.
Jihadist conquest, which commenced some 600 years ago, continues endlessly. Quadrant noted:
"To place any religion beyond criticism just because some Muslims may feel offended is to ignore, as Salman Rushdie puts it, 'the battle against fanatical Islam, which is highly organised, well-funded, and which seeks to terrify us all, Muslims as well as non-Muslims, into cowed silence'."
Nazi ideology is also making a comeback – as witnessed by the global platform afforded Nick Fuentes -- "Hitler," he said, was "very, very cool" -- by Carlson Tucker, who asked Fuentes no challenging questions. In early November, in Australia, a neo-Nazi cohort was granted permission to demonstrate outside the New South Wales parliament. The West's radical leftist-Islamist crowd grows ever-more vociferous and aggressive in their criticism of "Zionism" – supposedly a politically correct euphemism for Israel and Jews.
Israel's former Minister of Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer, wrote in his November 2025 letter of resignation:
"One hundred generations of Jews dreamed of living in a time when the Jewish people would have a sovereign state. Four generations were blessed to realize this dream. With this privilege comes a sacred responsibility: to secure this dream for future generations."
Author and educator Rabbi Uri Pilichowski wrote:
"The State of Israel was politically stablised to be the final place of refuge, where no Jew would ever have to flee again. Israel is a Jewish issue because it will be the place that all Jews will eventually flee to when their current country begins to persecute them."
Why does no one seem to mind having eight officially Islamic states (Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen) and 18 states where Islam is the state religion (Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, Qatar, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates), and one officially Anglican State, England, but apparently cannot tolerate one small Jewish state?
There is no place, in an existential conflict over Israel and its people, for a "right wing," "left wing" or "centrist" Israel. When the Third Reich pushed people into gas showers, or during the massacres of October 7, 2023, no one asked the victims if they were "rightist," "leftist," or "centrist." For the Jews, Christians and other "infidels," although many seem not to believe it yet, the choice is all or nothing: either survival or elimination. In this respect, Zionism – the safety of Israel – is the for persecuted Jews, the only sanctuary.
The Jewish nation will overcome all obstacles thrown at them. "Together we will do it," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged. "And with God's help, together we will win."
As the leaders in the West increasingly lose their moral compass and kneel to appease the radical Jew-haters in their midst, the Jews, after millennia of persecution and prejudice, go to Israel, their rightful homeland for peace, safety, and sanctuary. If Jews are to be criticized for defending their minute piece of real estate on Earth, so be it: they hold the moral high ground; their critics and enemies do not.
Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A Lawyer by profession, he is member of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Dr. Haug holds a Ph.D. in Apologetical Theology and is author of 'Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity'; and 'Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age.' His work has been published by First Things Journal, The American Mind, Quadrant, Minding the Campus, Gatestone Institute, National Association of Scholars, Jewish Journal, James Wilson Institute (Anchoring Truths), Jewish News Syndicate, Tribune Juive, Document Danmark, Zwiedzaj Polske, Schlaglicht Israel, and many others.
