Yeshayahu Leibowitz Quotes on Politics
Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994), the Latvian-Israeli Orthodox philosopher whose long career as a public intellectual ran from the foundation of the State of Israel through the late twentieth century, defended an uncompromising halakhic Judaism whose central political consequence is the absolute separation of religion from the institutions of the state. The framework — argued across the essays collected as Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State — frames the use of religious categories to legitimize the state's territorial, military, and demographic policies as a category mistake that simultaneously betrays the autonomy of religious obligation and corrupts the political prudence on which the security of the state depends. Leibowitz coined the term "Judeo-Nazism" in his late polemics against the occupation of the territories captured in 1967.
Quotes
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Attributed to Yeshayahu Leibowitz:
“The state is not a religious value; it is a political instrument that may be used well or ill.”
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Attributed to Yeshayahu Leibowitz:
“To attribute holiness to the state is to commit idolatry.”
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Attributed to Yeshayahu Leibowitz:
“Israel must choose between the integrity of its democracy and the project of long-term occupation; it cannot have both.”
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“[W]ithout an agreement imposed from the outside, our situation will deteriorate to that of a second Vietnam , to a war in constant escalation without the prospect of ultimate resolution.”
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“Security " is a reality only where there is true peace between neighbors , as in the case of Holland / Belgium , Sweden / Norway , the United States / Canada . In the absence of peace there is no security, and no geographic-strategic settlement on the land can change this. There is no direct link between security and the territories.”
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“Our security has been diminished rather than enhanced as a result of the conquests in this war.”
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“Our real problem is not the territory but rather the population of about a million and a half Arabs who live in it and over whom we will need to impose our rule. Inclusion of these Arabs (in addition to the half a million who are citizens of the state) in the area under our rule will effect the liquidation of the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people and bring about catastrophe for the Jewish people as a whole; it will undermine the social structure that we have created in the state and cause the corruption of individuals, both Jew and Arab .”
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“As for the " religious " arguments for the annexation of the territories—these are only an expression, subconsciously or perhaps even overtly hypocritical , of the transformation of the Jewish religion into a camouflage for Israeli nationalism . Counterfeit religion identifies national interests with the service of God and imputes to the state—which is only an instrument serving human needs—supreme value from a religious standpoint.”
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