In response to Prime Minister Netanyahu's remarks that "God hasn't always shielded us (the Jewish people), especially in Europe," United Torah Judaism MK Yisrael Eichler went on an anti-Zionist tirade. He said that "the Zionists and the partisans did not prevent a holocaust in Europe. The Germans were stopped on the way to occupying the Land of Israel by miracles and not because of the Zionists." He also remarked, "Even after the Holocaust, all the Jewish migrants in the Diaspora have since lived in relative peace and quiet. Only in the Land of Israel has Jewish blood been shed like water, from then until now."
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Eichler really needs to get his head on straight. No, the Zionists did not prevent the Holocaust in Europe. They did, however, save many Jewish lives during the Holocaust, including that of Rabbi Aharon Rokeach, the leader of the Belz Hasidic sect to which Eichler belongs, even though he was a fierce opponent of Zionism. And for the record, the Nazis were not prevented from occupying the Land of Israel by "miracles". They were prevented by flesh and blood soldiers. And it was flesh and blood soldiers (some of them Jewish), not divine miracles, that ultimately defeated Nazi Germany. Today, it is flesh and blood soldiers who defend the State of Israel, not students in yeshivas studying the Torah, subsidized by hard-working Israeli taxpayers.
Jewish blood was, as Eichler put it, "shed like water" by Hitler's Nazi death machine because the Jews of Europe had nowhere to go to seek refuge. Countries all over the world closed their borders to the Jews. One can only imagine how many Jews in Europe could have been saved from the Nazi gas chambers had there been a Jewish state for them to go to – the kind that Eichler's rabbi didn't want to see created.
Thankfully, today, the Jewish people do have a state. A state created, not by the almighty, but by the human beings of the Zionist movement – the State of Israel. For nearly two millennia, Jews all over the world prayed to God for a return to their ancestral homeland. But did it happen just because of God? It was people like Theodore Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, who made it happen, though it is certainly possible that they were inspired by God as many Zionists still are today. And ever since Israel became independent in 1948, countless numbers of Jews have taken refuge in it, because, contrary to what Eichler says, Jews in the Diaspora have NOT lived in "relative peace and quiet" in the Diaspora after the events of the Holocaust.
Indeed, Jews from all over the world have come to Israel to escape persecution and death in the Diaspora. Jews from North Africa and the Middle East who fled or were expelled by Arab governments. Jews from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union fleeing communist tyranny. Jews from Ethiopia fleeing persecution and war. Most recently, Jews from Ukraine and Russia have come to Israel in order to escape Vladimir Putin's tyranny and war of conquest. Over the last few years, Israel has even seen an increase in immigration from Western countries, where surging antisemitism is making many Jews consider leaving.
Year after year, decade after decade, Jews have sought refuge in Israel because they could not live in "relative peace and quiet" in the Diaspora. And it is very comforting for Jews still living in the Diaspora, such as myself, to know that if ever there comes a time that we can no longer live in "relative peace and quiet", we have a country that will give us refuge.
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