*2.3. A First Sum: Framing a Polarized World*

Building on a biblically founded distinction into empire (Babylon and Egypt) and nation (Israel), Hazony outlines a continuing duel between imperialism and nationalism. At the beginning of modern times, biblical nationalism becomes what he calls the Protestant order, which gains its counterpart in the Enlightenment in the form of the theories of John Locke and Immanuel Kant.

After the Second World War, there is a paradigm shift in Europe. Nationalism in the form of the Protestant nation-state order is held responsible for the atrocities of Auschwitz. Liberalism as a hegemonic world order is supposed to bring peace and prosperity. Systems that continue to be nation-state oriented—such as the newly founded State of Israel, Brexit-U.K., Orbán's Hungary or PIS-Poland—are discredited by liberal actors and condemned as fascists, yet from Hazony's perspective they are merely the victims of liberal imperialism, especially the European Union and liberals such as Habermas.

Thus, we have sketched the framework—but where lies the ideological core of the political theory that Hazony develops as the basis of National Conservativism? This can be summarized into a triad: nation, faith and family—the last one being the foundational pillar.
