Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's big win will stand as "a defining moment in modern Israel history," Rabbi Shmuley Boteach says.
"This election was a referendum on whether a prime minister would be kind of booted out specifically because he doesn't get along with an American president," Boteach said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
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"The main argument being made by Bibi's opponents was we're going to repair the relationship with the White House.
"But they could only repair it if they would capitulate to President [Barack] Obama's policies — especially the attempt to appease Iran with regards to their nuclear program. I actually see this as a defining moment in modern Israel history."
Boteach, a prominent Jewish voice in the United States who is known as "America's rabbi," said Jews have been reliant for thousands of years on other protectors.
"They have been supplicants. The idea of an independent Jewish state with an independent military was that Jews would finally protect themselves and that's happened since 1948," he said.
"Yet, the Israeli mentality was we need the United States and without them we can't function. And that's what Bibi's opposition said.
"The fact that he could have such a fractious relationship with President Obama and still prevail in a stunning victory is a demonstration of a new kind of thinking in Israel."
Boteach — founder of "This World: The Values Network," which promotes universal Jewish values in politics, culture, and media — said Netanyahu's last-minute bombshell never to support a "two-state solution" with the Palestinians had already been decided.
"The two-state solution was rejected by the Palestinians. Hamas, which controls Gaza, has a genocidal charter, which not only will not accept the two-state solution with Israel, but it calls for the complete destruction and annihilation, not just of Israel, but of every Jew, everywhere in the world," Boteach said.
"As far as Mahmoud Abbas [president of the Palestinian Authority] is concerned … [he] is paying literally terrorists who have been arrested by Israel. He funds them in Israeli prisons, he sometimes gives them payments of like $100,000. That's hardly someone who wants a two-state solution."
Boteach said Israel wants to see peace in the Middle East through an acceptance of the Jewish state.
"There are, thank God, 22 Arab states. No one has any argument with them being Arab states … A country can have a national character and a national identity without it disenfranchising any of its citizens."
"But sometimes you need to defend yourself and you can't just allow your life to be cheap … [This is] the 70th anniversary of the end of the death camps … We saw Jews being prepared to walk into gas chambers because they were fooled through propaganda campaigns on the part of the Nazis. That can never happen again. We must be defiant and we have a right to live."
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