Ready to declare independence, the soon-to-be government of Israel found itself at an impasse: the religious Zionist leader Rabbi Yehudah Leib Maimon refused to sign a declaration that did not mention God, while the leader of the more extreme socialists refused to sign a declaration that did. David Ben-Gurion solved the problem by introducing into the text the ambiguous phrase “the Rock of Israel.” Meir Soloveichik comments on this controversy, and its American equivalent:

For myself, a religious Zionist and American-history aficionado, the story is doubly painful. Thomas Jefferson, the deistic drafter of the Declaration in Philadelphia, produced a first version without any reference to the divine designs of history. The Continental Congress, however, representing an America obsessed with the Bible, edited the dramatic closing of the original draft so that it made clear that the revolution was being launched with “a firm reliance on divine providence.”

The irony is difficult to miss. America, inspired by the Israelite commonwealth in the Hebrew Bible, ordered that a reference to a providential God be added to its Declaration of Independence. But in the 20th century, the restored Israelite commonwealth went out of its way to remove any such reference. . . .

Seventy years after May 14, 1948, religious Zionists still smart at the words with which Israel came into being. At the same time, they take comfort in the fact that what followed that extraordinary day vindicates their own interpretation of the words “Rock of Israel.” . . .

The definition of a miracle is an event that should not naturally have occurred. For us, this tends to mean the splitting of the sea, the stopping of the sun, the opening of the earth. Yet, by the very same definition, it is a miracle that Israel was born, and endured in the way that it did. It is a miracle that after a generation in which many Jewish children grew up without parents, let alone grandparents, we have experienced the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy that grandparents will watch their grandchildren play in the streets of Jerusalem. It is a miracle that after so many civilizations have disappeared, Jewish children continue to be born. It is a miracle that as anti-Semitism continues to haunt the nations of Europe that persecuted the Jews for so long, religious Judaism flourishes in Israel even as a now-secular Europe demographically declines.

More than any other event in the last 70 years, the state that was born in avoidance of any explicit affirmation of Israel’s God now stands as the greatest argument for the existence of that very same God.

Before exploding electronics in Lebanon seized the attention of the Israeli public, debate there had focused on the Philadelphi Corridor—the strip of land between Gaza and Egypt—and whether the IDF can afford to withdraw from it. Egypt has opposed Israeli control of the corridor, which is crucial to Hamas’s supply lines, and Egyptian objections likely prevented Israel from seizing it earlier in the war. Yet, argues Mariam Wahba, Egypt in the long run only stands to lose by letting Hamas use the corridor, and has proved incapable of effectively sealing it off:

Ultimately, this moment presents an opportunity for the United States to hold Egypt’s feet to the fire.

To press Cairo, the United States should consider conditioning future aid on Cairo’s willingness to cooperate. This should include a demand for greater transparency and independent oversight to verify Egyptian claims about the tunnels. Congress ought to hold hearings to understand better Egypt’s role and its compliance as a U.S. ally. Despite Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s nine trips to the Middle East since the start of the war, there has been little clarity on how Egypt intends to fulfill its role as a mediator.

By refusing to acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security concerns, Egypt is undermining its own interests, prolonging the war in Gaza, and further destabilizing its relationship with Jerusalem. It is time for Egyptian leaders either to admit their inability to secure the border and seek help from Israel and America, or to risk being perceived as enablers of Hamas and its terrorist campaign.