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July 21, 2005
A few days ago,
I received in my email a new political bumper sticker – it was a
picture of two Israeli flags, one in orange and white and the
other in the traditional blue and white. Under the flags it
said: “ Israel – two states for two people”. While watching the
Israeli news everyday this past week seeing 40,000 Israelis
dressed in orange trying to prevent the Israeli disengagement
from Gaza
, I keep asking myself: are we part of the same people? The
color orange symbolizing the Israeli version of the “orange
revolution against the government” that succeeded in the Ukraine
, now decorates cars, road signs, hats, tee-shirts, and
junctions all over the country have young people distributing
orange ribbons. Never has the dichotomy of Israeli society been
more visually obviously. Never have I felt more alienated from
so many other Israelis. The Israeli decision to leave Gaza , in
my mind, is so much the right thing to do that it is hard for me
to under stan d anyone on the other side of the issue inside of
Israel .
Settling in
Gaza in
the first place was a grave error. Leaving
Gaza
and withdrawing the settlers and the settlements is perhaps the
first step towards correcting the error. Those who want Israel
to stay there and to continue the colonization policies are a
mix of political right wing fanatics and religious messianic
fantasy filled delusionists. In my world view, these are
dangerous people and their world view and value system place us
in two different camps. I look at them and listen to them and
wonder what we have in common. We have the same roots. Our
histories have shared heritages. We came from the same places
and have lived through the same experiences. Yet our paths have
split and it seems that our futures are going in very different
directions.
They speak about
redemption. They believe that by their actions they will bring
the messiah. They face the challenges ahead of them with the
belief that bringing redemption is filled with pain, suffering
and struggle. They have faith in their God and as a result of
that faith, they have non-rationale answers for every rationale
question they are asked. When asked about the logic of settling
in Gaza with almost 2 million Palestinians there, or about why
the State of Israel should invest so many resources – human and
financial, in protecting a few thousand settlers, they respond
that they are fulfilling the will of God and that the road to
redemption is paved by settling the Land of Israel. These are
arguments that cannot be won or even debated on logical and
rationale terms. These are arguments that I have no response
to.
More than the
irrationality of their viewpoint and beliefs, is the reality
that their value system is completely foreign to mine. They
believe within the deepest places of their souls that they are
superior to all other people. Their slogan “Jews don’t expel
Jews” is just one small example of how they relate to others who
are not Jews. Is it alright in their view that Jews can expel
non-Jews? The answer is yes. When the Jewish sages spoke about
doing to others as you would like to be treated yourself, the
Sages related to the all of the “others”, especially to the
non-Jews. But in the interpretation of this central message of
Judaism, the settlers and their supporters relate to the
“others” only as to other Jews. For them, non-Jews can be
treated differently. Non-Jews can be expelled. Non-Jews can be
exploited. Non-Jews don’t have rights to land in the
Land of Israel .
Non Jews are not like us.
This is not the
view and under stan ding of Judaism that I was taught and that I
live by. Their moral code differentiates between Jews and all of
the others. They don’t even see the danger of their position and
their world view. They don’t see this as racism. They see this
as the will of their God. For them the world is divided into
“us” and “them”. “We” are good and “they” are not. God gave the
Land
of Israel to “us” and not to “them”.
This week we
witnessed how their world view can spill over into Israeli
society itself. This week one of the settler leaders, Pinchas
Wallerstein said that
Sharon is not a
human being. In Wallerstein’s book,
Sharon
has lost his status as a member of the human race because he
will expel the Jews of Gaza from their homes and is working
against the redemption of the Jewish people and of the
Land
of Israel
. Wallerstein was reprimanded by many of his settler colleagues
who understood the danger of his message. He ended up
withdrawing his comment, but the idea that there are two classes
of Jews – those with the settlers and those against the
settlers, is likely to re-emerge later in their struggle.
Many of the
settlers and their followers have adopted similar positions by
calling the soldiers and the police who prevent their protests
“Nazis” or “Judenrat” – the Jews in Nazi concentration camps who
were forced to serve the Nazis. Adopting the symbols of the
Holocaust to the cause of the settlers has caused quite an
outrage amongst many Israelis. This has further deepened the
cleavages between “them” and “us”.
The mixture of
political fanaticism and religious extremism is always toxic. It
is what moves Bin Laden and his followers, it is what moves the
followers of Kahana and Chabad. It is dangerous and it is
becoming more extreme. In
Israel of July
2005, the ultra orthodox messianic Chabad movement has joined
forces with the followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahana.
Removing Palestinians from the Land of Israel is their stated
goal. In their minds, all means are kosher. These are very
dangerous people who are capable of doing very dangerous things.
When it becomes clear to them that they cannot stop the
disengagement by non-violent protests and marches, the tactics
of the current mainstream settler leaders, these groups are
capable and likely to take actions aimed at provoking
Palestinian violence. They hope that Palestinian violence will
cause the disengagement plans to be halted. These are the kind
of people who targeted the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif with the
aim of sparking a flame that will ignite the entire Middle East
. These are the kind of people who are capable of blowing up a
Palestinian school with the school children inside. In the
coming weeks, as the date of evacuation gets closer, these
people will become more and more desperate.
As
Israel and the
Palestinians move forward, hopefully some day soon after the
disengagement, back into negotiations, the future of the West
Bank will be in focus. If and when Israel agrees to disengage
and withdraw from the
West Bank
, the religious and political fanaticism of the settlers will be
at a much higher level that demonstrated today. For them the
West Bank
is the historic land of Israel . It is the land of the
prophets; it is the Land of the Torah. There are some Jews who
claim that
Gaza
was never part of the Biblical Land of Israel. There is no one
who says that the West Bank was not the heartland of Jewish
history and heritage. If and when we move towards negotiations
over the West Bank the earth under their world view and value
system will quake with much more intensity than what we witness
now.
If and when the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is ever resolved, the internal
conflicts inside of
Israel will
continue with much greater intensity. On the positive side it
should be noted that since the disengagement plan was announced
about 1 ½ years ago, the percentage of Israelis opposed to the
plan has not grown. The opposition has remained con
stan t at
between 30-36%. Some of the opposition is because Israel is
doing it unilaterally, not part of the negotiated process in
which the Palestinians would be required to give something in
return. Some are opposed because they believe that the
disengagement is a reward for Palestinian terrorism and will
only encourage the Palestinians to continue to adopt violence as
their primary political tactic.
I would estimate
that the religious-political fanatics probably represent about
25% of Israeli society. Amongst those 1.25 million Israelis (!)
there are various degrees of extremism. The most extreme are
found in places like
Hebron . Others
are the next generation of settlers, the youth who can be found
on the hilltops of the West Bank . They heard
Sharon
call on them a few years ago to “capture every hill top”. They
grew up on the stories of their parents who went into the
West Bank
and built the settlements from nothing. The settlers have
developed and refined a collective narrative of heroism and deep
faith in God and mission. The next generation of settlers,
inspired by their parents and filled with hatred towards the
Palestinians, which has grown tremendously during the years of
the intifada, has brought fanaticism to new levels. These youths
are a bizarre mixture of 1960’s hippy type revolt; they
experiment with drugs and mysticism and are motivated by the
most extreme form of religious inspired political fanaticism.
This is another group of extremists with almost no limits on the
use of violence against Palestinians. This small group of youth
live in closed and secretive societies. Many of them are found
in small groups – a few living on hilltops overlooking
Palestinian villages and towns. They have no fear in their
souls. They believe that they are acting as agents for God.
They have a mission and they will not be deterred by laws, or by
soldiers or police. These people are also capable of using acts
of provocation to prevent Israeli withdrawals from the
West Bank .
Israeli society
is divided and in anguish. There are and there will be many
stories of trauma that are being presented as part and parcel of
the disengagement. The trauma stories will be used and exploited
by those who wish to prevent future withdrawals and
disengagements. Some of it is real, some of it is orchestrated
and embellished. The divisions and cleavages in
Israel are very
real, these will certainly grow. |