For thousands of years to be a Jew meant being afraid. Afraid of anti-Semites, afraid of pogroms, afraid of the Church, afraid of Islam.
Israel was a collective statement on the part of an oppressed and persecuted people that they were tired of being afraid, that fear could no longer be a Jewish birthright.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, “Who’s Afraid of Hamas?”, The Jewish Week (1 August 2014), 17.