Israel: Security through violence?

We are reading Parsha Vayavo this shabbes, “when you arrive”, describing what happens when we reach the promised land. This culminates a long narrative in Vayeitzei of the wars we will fight to arrive there, a very violent narrative which is hard to read as a Jew.
In the blessings and curses, there is a promise that the power balance between Jews and non-Jews will be shifted, but it seems troubling that there still is a power dynamic, that it seems to envision a messianic era in which Jews are powerful and others are not, when there is still an underdog and a victor. Verse 28:10 promises that other nations will be scared of us, instead of us being terrified of them.
Do we really dream of a world where other nations live in fear of us, just as we have been in fear of our enemies?
Today’s haftorah gives a more pacifist approach: violence will no longer be heard of in the land. Similarly, in the prophets we read that a day will come when swords will be beaten into ploughshares. We dream of a day not when we will be stronger than our enemies, but when violence will not be necessary at all. We dream of a day not when Israel will have a bomb and its neighbors will be scared to develop one, but when the Arab nations will respect Israel and let her live in peace.
Notice, however, that in verse 28:10, it does not say other nations will fear us because we will have weapons, but rather because the name of God will be on us. Similarly, in verse 27:6, the Torah states that iron was not to be sounded in the Temple. The rocks were not cut with metal blades because weapons are so antithetical to Jewish spirituality. The power dynamic will be reversed not with force, but by following God’s ways, by doing that which is right and just.
What does it mean that the other nations will fear us? Fear in Hebrew can also be awe, or respect. The Zohar says that if we fear God’s punishment, we are actually focusing our spiritual energies on the agent of his punishment, Satan, and thus actually engaging in Satanic worship. It really says this, right in the introduction. Yir’ah means awe, awareness of God’s wonderfulness.
We are trying to create a day when other nations respect us because they respect the holiness apparent in our actions. A day when everyone knows how well the Jews behave, how generous and honest and upright they are, that nobody would never dream of mistreating us. This is what it means to have the name of God on us: to have the image of God, which is lovingkindness, apparent in our actions.
The story is told that Reb Shlomo once was surrounded by a group of homeless men in Harlem that were intent on robbing him. One of the men, though, recognized him: he always had given him tzedakah, wished him well, treated him like a brother. This is yir’ah: seeing the divine reflected in somebody’s actions, and respecting them.
We dream not of a day when the other nations will fear us, but when they will respect us because of what we do. It is not Israel’s army that will bring security, but organizations like the Magen David Adom, which is consistently the first organization to respond to catastrophes such as the tsunami in Indonesia or the earthquake in Haiti.