After more than fifty years, I think the clear answer is no. Deeply affected by the horrors of the Holocaust, a majority of the United Nations voted to create the state of Israel in 1947. In fact, 33 approved, 13 opposed, and 10 abstained. The turmoil and chaos created by the founding of this state suggest that this decision was a major mistake. The Vatican wisely opposed it, and resisted recognizing the new state. In fact, it only opened diplamatic relations in 1993. When you think about it, anybody who values an authentically conservative political philosophy would come to the same conclusion. After all, what was the state of Israel but an attempt to create an entire culture and society from scratch, a new and improved society, filled with the secular messianism of the Zionist socialists and the theological certainty of those claiming a divine land grant? As with all similar attempts to uproot the prevailing institutions to create a better world in the past (think French and Russian revolutions), it was bound to fail. In this case, it completely ignored the pre-existing Palestinian inhabitants of the region, pushing them further and further into ghettoized second-class citizenship as it invited members of the Jewish religion from all around the world to seek citizenship without limit. Milk and honey for Jews; parched mouths for Palestinians. One does not have to approve of Hamas to see how such a situation would lead to Hamas.
Of course, the very same argument can be used against those extremists today who wish to drive the state of Israel into the sea, as this is also predicated on an unjust and deeply disruptive population movement. So, we are stuck with the secular state of Israel. But we are stuck with many countries and nations. The history of humanity is the history of human wandering, and not always into empty territory. The Boers entered South Africa a few hundred years ago, but then again so did the Bantus– today, both have the right to be called African. The American colonists may have colonized and stolen land unjustly, but their descendants are from that land today. The fluidity of European population movements of late antiquity make a mockery of ancient claims to nationhood.
So, the secular state of Israel has the right to exist, but not unconditionally. It is well-established enough to have its integrity respected, but it also the duty to provide for the welfare of the populations it has dispossessed. It is a secular state; it has no divine mandate. It gets no exemption from the rules simply because its neighbors (justifiably) have major problems with its existence. A rather modest conclusion, no? And yet, I think if you start from the premise that the creation of Israel was a mistake, while holding that it retains the right to exist today, you arrive at a very different conclusion than if you start from the position that the creation of Israel was absolutely correct to begin with. And that is my point.
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