Between Har Hamor and Rabbi Meir Kahane, a conception is taking shape that turns isolation from a value imposed from without into an ideological goal — even at the cost of collision with reality

In a Dvar Torah for Parshat Balak, Dr. Zvi Elchaiani offered a reading of “Behold, a people that dwells alone and is not reckoned among the nations” as the secret of the Jewish state’s strength, a solitude that is not a curse but a source of dignity, modesty, and inner identity. This reading, in the spirit of Har Hamor circles, seeks to argue that the people of Israel cannot realize itself through the recognition it receives from the nations of the world. In Elchaiani’s words, “solitude is not weakness but self-strength deriving from inner order,” that is, the source of power is entirely internal and requires nothing of the world’s regard for the nation. Solitude is not a price, but a rung on the ladder.

A few weeks ago, my friend Dr. Elad Caplan sharpened the same conception from another direction, when he brought quotations from Rabbi Kahane’s teaching according to which political isolation is not a challenge but a goal. In the original: “It cannot be that God will bring the final redemption so long as we have even a single ally.” When one sets the two voices side by side, a shared, and troubling, logic emerges.

Building strategic alliances necessarily involves negotiating with reality, a reality that may determine, for instance, that certain aspirations of Religious Zionism are simply not realistic strategically. Here the mechanism kicks in. Both Kahanism and Har Hamor seek to persuade us that any such friction is merely a temporary glitch. Provocation toward one’s allies becomes a badge of honour, and when the result is yet more diplomatic damage, they leap to say: we told you so, the world is against us.

This is a logical failure before it is a diplomatic one. If........

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