While Kook never re-entered politics, he continued to give interviews in which he articulated his independent perspectives on Zionism, Jewish identity, and Israeli politics. He held that Jabotinsky's primary goal in creating a Jewish state was in making a country to which all Jews would want to belong, and that once Israel had been created, any Jews who refused to make aliyah had made a conscious choice to become "integrated" citizens of their naturalized countries. Making a distinction between Jews and Hebrews was another point of contention between Kook and the Irgun leadership as early as the mid–1940s. Kook's views have been described as a more moderate version of the "Canaanist" ideology espoused by Yonatan Ratosh. Like Ratosh, Kook was influenced by Adolf Gurevich, a Betar activist with connections to Bergson Group members Shmuel Merlin and Eri Jabotinsky.