1.
A Jew digs in the arid desert soil. The earth is unyielding. He persists, striking rock and dirt, clawing at the land’s innards with his bare hands. Hostile neighbours mock his naïveté, but he believes. “The land’s ancient wrath, smoky and primeval… it whitens your lashes with salt… as you ravage it, metal again bludgeons your bones… your body weeps through aching hands, against sealed stone, against a deaf ear.”
That is how the poet Nathan Alterman described the struggle to find water in the Negev, before Israel was born. “A man in his dream and a tree in its roots, bound in dread, petrified and stilled.”
We can imagine it was the same in the days of the patriarchs, when Abraham dug and found water, and Isaac continued his father’s work. Water in the desert benefits everyone. It brings life, settlement, trade, food, and agriculture. This was the old, rational “conception”: that everyone seeks prosperity, that people would rather build and flourish than fight. That peace and cooperation would prevail because they are in everyone’s best interest.
2.
But not everyone sees it that way. Without morality and fear of God, ancient hatreds, tribal laws, foundational myths, and desert codes easily outweigh logic. Myth trumps reason. “And all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth.” (Genesis 26:15). Not merely sealed, but deliberately filled with dirt to ensure no one could ever use them again. They were willing to suffer thirst and doom their region to ruin just so that the Jews would suffer.
For generations, commentators struggled to explain why the Philistines would destroy their own lifelines just to harm their enemies. But those of us who survived October 7 know that such a thing is possible. For our neighbours, the destruction of their own homes, towns, and lives was worth it for a single day in which they could humiliate the Jews and unleash unimaginable cruelty upon them. The biblical Philistines vanished long ago, but new invaders have taken their place, from the Philistines to the Palestinians of our time.
3.
Why? The Bible offers a succinct answer: “And the Philistines envied him.” (Genesis 26:14). Isaac told Abimelech the truth: “You hate me.” They couldn’t bear the success of this Hebrew man, who had received the same barren land as they had, but unlike them had turned it into a thriving, prosperous region with a strong economy, blooming communities, and a cultural, spiritual, and technological message for the entire region. “And Isaac sowed in that land, and in that year reaped a hundredfold – and the Lord blessed him. And the man became rich, and he grew richer and richer, until he was very wealthy. And he had flocks, herds, and many enterprises.” (Genesis 26:12).
Look around at Israel’s neighbouring states, and you will understand the root of the hatred. Now that they have failed to destroy us, they are doing the same to Europe – the continent that expelled and murdered its Jews. Israel stands at the front line of Western civilization. In fighting the invaders, we are also defending those in Europe who have chosen to collaborate with the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks their destruction. What a disgrace.
4.
Abimelech said to Isaac: “Move away from us, for you have become too powerful for us!” It wasn’t just his economic success that bothered them – worse, he had grown strong from within their midst. His wealth, they claimed, came from them. In reality, as the Torah tells it, Isaac succeeded through his own talents and hard work. He sowed and reaped, dug and found water. He did not grow rich by exploiting others, but by contributing to them. His success only served to highlight his neighbours’ failures, and what could they tell their own people, who were responsible for their own poverty? The familiar antisemitic formula of blaming Jews for others’ failures began back then.
The 19th-century Torah commentator Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv) wrote: “Scripture tells us this is what happens in exile – they will fence us out from settling in all parts of the land.” Isaac’s son Jacob experienced the same pattern. He arrived at his uncle Laban’s small farm and turned it into an empire within 20 years. Even Laban admitted: “The Lord has blessed me because of you.” But this did not earn gratitude – only continued deceit. And when Jacob became wealthy – not at Laban’s expense, but together with him – he heard Laban’s sons say what Jew-haters have said throughout the ages: “Jacob has taken all that was our father’s, and from what was our father’s he has gained all this wealth.”
This is a historical formula we know all too well. Jews settle, contribute to the local economy, culture, ethics, and governance. They sometimes enter politics and help the place thrive. Then, when they succeed, alongside their contributions, they are accused of exploiting the land and enriching themselves at the expense of the “native” population. The next stage is always the same: riots, destruction, exile. It makes no difference that Jews lived in those places long before their so-called “indigenous” populations: in Spain for a thousand years until the expulsion in 1492; in Italy for 2,200 years until deportation to the death camps in 1943; in Iraq for some 2,500 years until the 1941 Farhud pogrom – and so on.
5.
And yet we never gave up on the world. Even after being expelled, even after being herded into gas chambers, we sought to repair and improve humanity. We do not give up even now, despite the hypocrisy of Europe, Australia, Canada and other countries that have capitulated to terror and incitement by the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters, turning their backs on the Jewish people and its state in the hope of quieting the riots on their streets.
Jews have always been the canary in the coal mine for civilizational collapse. Hatred begins with the Jews, spreads to other minorities, and ultimately consumes the very societies that harbor it.
As in Jotham’s parable, the thornbush, barren and full of hate, is a warning to the world: if the thornbush reigns and directs violence against the Jews, then ultimately “fire will come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon.” Western civilization is in peril. We repeat our call to our Jewish brothers and sisters worldwide: Come home before it’s too late. This is your place.
6.
But we did not despair. We returned and re-dug the water wells that our enemies had stopped up – for the benefit of the entire region. “And Isaac returned and dug again the wells of water.” Our sages learned from this: “Great are the righteous” – why? “Because they work to build the world.” The wells are the sources of life – Torah, science, culture, ethics, and the countless innovations that this blessed land has produced in unprecedented abundance compared to the rest of the world. And we do not hoard them; we share them with humanity to improve the lives of all who have breath and spirit.
“And there they found a well of fresh water… and he named the well Esek for they quarrelled with him… and they dug another well and called it Sitnah… and he dug another well and they did not argue over it – and he called it Rehovot and said, Now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.” (Genesis 26:17–25).
They will burn, destroy, and block the sources of life. But we will heal, build, and add justice and repair to the world. The deeds of the patriarchs are a sign for their descendants.
