OPINION: Why Britain needs to adopt core Israeli characteristics

On my way to shul, I walk past cars with bumper stickers showing the Israeli flag and slogans saying “Together we will win!” and “Am Yisrael Chai!”

It’s true; after 3,500 years the Jewish people are still here, against all odds. Why? Because we have a purpose in this Land. We have a culture that we are literally prepared to die for. Through Zionism we have created a wonderful home for ourselves, and for others, with rights and responsibilities that make life meaningful and worth living.

The same was true of the Britain that my grandparents lived in. Despite being immigrants from Latvia and initially classified as “enemy aliens” at the beginning of the Second World War, they soon learned to appreciate true British resilience. With food rationing in force throughout the war, and for a decade afterwards, the British people stiffened their upper lips and built an economic miracle, bringing in immigrants from all over the disbanded British Empire.

This could be seen as a lesson in pluralism and multiculturalism. But then, Britain lost her way. Without strong enough British (Christian) values, the more dogmatic culture of some of the immigrants gained a foothold and transformed Britain into a woke and apologetic ghost of its previous self.

Many Brits are no longer proud to be British. Instead, they demonstrate in embarrassment about their white colonialist heritage. This is the heritage that contributed to the destruction of Nazi Germany and prevented the Third Reich from taking over the world, saving millions of blacks and Asians, Muslims and Jews, gays and gypsies, from a fate worse than death. We Brits should be proud of our history.

Since Israel’s health system is the most efficient and offers the best value for money in the western world, Britain may need to transform the NHS to look, well… more Israeli!

What Britain needs is a strong dose of Zionism, British style — let’s call it “Britainism”. When Grant Shapps, the British Secretary of State for Defence, recently announced that Britain was facing a high risk of war in the near future against Russia, Iran and other rogue states, he suggested that Britain needed three changes: more weapons, military conscription, and a “change in culture”.

Acquiring more weapons sounds like a technical matter — the government can just buy more of what they need. In fact, it is a more complex issue, that will affect every part of British life. If Britain needs to increase its defence budget to 12 per cent of GDP (like Israel), the government may have to reform the British health and educational systems in order to pay for it. Since Israel’s health system is the most efficient and offers the best value for money in the western world, Britain may need to transform the NHS to look, well… more Israeli!

Israel is also the only democratic country to have military conscription for both men and women, so British conscription would look rather Zionist too. And when Mr Shapps called for a “change in culture”, I imagine that he was referring to the amazing patriotic reaction that we have seen in Israel since October 7, with Israelis responding with passion and unity to defend their country from an existential threat. At the same time, too many people in Britain and Europe took to the streets to defend Jihadism in all its evil manifestations.

For Britain to survive the next few generations, it has much to learn from Israel. Pride in its history and heritage, a flexible attitude to prioritising defence spending, and a commitment to defending its core values.

Indeed, the new Britainism may look a lot like an anglicised form of Zionism.

Rabbi Leo Dee is an educator living in Efrat, and Israel’s Special Envoy for Social Initiatives. He was formerly rabbi of Radlett United Synagogue and assistant rabbi at Hendon United Synagogue. His book “Transforming the World: The Jewish Impact on Modernity” has been republished in English and Hebrew in memory of his wife Lucy and daughters Maia and Rina, who were murdered by terrorists in April 2023.