Tablet has been one of the most provocative journals of American opinion for a few years now. This week, they are running a bracing essay by Jeremy England, which posits Israel’s need to embrace specifically Jewish ethics of survival and to discard an ambient, arguably suicidal, universalism that is imposed on it by Christianity’s still ambient moral influence. England writes:

Israel must stop begging to be judged fairly by whatever standards the current hegemon has decreed we all agree upon. We need to look for standards from within our tradition to set a moral example for the whole world, while making it more practically possible to defend our homeland.

Now, in some respects I want to argue that the ethics of Christian martyrdom and moral universalism do not, as implied in this essay, oblige entire peoples to passively or joyfully accept their obliteration from their earth. Christians have their own doctrines of just war and the just use of force.

But I take seriously this specifically Jewish critique of hyper-liberal norms that, I would argue, flow out like cerebral fluid from the brain death of Christendom. If I may be so bold: What is the use of Zionism if Jews do not take seriously the scriptural, historical, and ethical account of their own survival seriously?