http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=4953
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As an Israeli citizen, I am
profoundly ashamed of the “price tag” crimes committed by Jewish
hooligans and bigots primarily against Arabs over the green line.
I am also shocked by our
collective failure to bring an end to these ongoing outrages. Despite
our sophisticated anti-terror and intelligence capabilities, there have
been virtually no arrests or convictions.
These acts can be sourced to
2005 when settlers resorted to violence in response to their pain and
desperation when forcibly displaced from their homes in the course of
the unilateral disengagement from Gaza.
What has since developed is
horrifying: From vigilante reprisals for Arab acts of terror or
vandalism, it has extended into retaliation for government demolitions
and evacuation of illegal structures or unauthorized outposts. The
perpetrators and their supporters now also direct their ire against the
IDF, and soldiers and police have been injured and military
installations damaged in confrontations.
The indiscriminate acts of
violence and desecration are outright hate crimes. The violence is
directed principally at Moslems but also extended to Christians. It
includes thuggish violence against individuals, burning and desecration
of mosques and churches, stone throwing, uprooting and burning trees and
fields, and incursions into Palestinian villages.
Such abhorrent crimes are not
the acts of Jewish nationalists. The thugs who commit these offences
have more in common with the Cossacks at the time of the pogroms than
with patriotic Israelis. The masks they frequently wear are reminiscent
of the Ku Klux Klan. They are not even conscious that they are behaving
like anti-Semites who launched pogroms against their Diaspora
forefathers. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon describes their acts as
“terrorism”.
Such acts are a boon to Arab
propagandists looking for newsworthy stories to exaggerate and
publicize. Frequently, Arabs in conjunction with anti-Israeli “human
rights” bodies delight in concocting fantasies or gross embellishments
of such acts. There have been documented cases of Palestinians cutting
down trees and fabricating attacks against themselves in order to accuse
settlers of criminal activity.
Fortunately, to date, there
have been no fatalities. But if the scoundrels continue on their course,
we will undoubtedly face greater disasters in the future. Last month’s
confrontation between settlers of the Eish Kodesh outpost and
Palestinians from the neighboring village of Kusra was a wake-up call.
In the wake of a government decision to demolish olive trees planted in
the outpost without authorization, Palestinians claimed that settlers
intended to commit a “price tag” act against them. The settlers were
ambushed and severely beaten. A bloody lynch was only narrowly averted
due to IDF and police intervention who rejected the settlers’ claim that
they were innocently hiking in the area.
Let there be no
misunderstanding: the overwhelming majority of settlers are law-abiding
citizens. They are fully aware that these thugs discredit them and
undermine their standing in the broader Israeli community.
Moreover, even allowing for the
fact that only a very tiny number of settlers, a fringe group, are
actually engaged in this shocking behavior, the settlement movement must
assume collective responsibility for spawning such youngsters devoid of
humanity and decency.
The reality is that whilst
their leaders, rabbis and spokesmen condemn these crimes, many do so
without emotional intensity or outrage. More importantly, there are
numerous settlers who are aware of these crimes, and yet unwilling to
intervene to prevent them or report them to the authorities.
The settlement movement
leadership must urgently overcome any vestiges of ambivalence towards
these hate-crimes and campaign to expunge these deviants from their
midst. If such hateful activity continues to flourish unchecked, the
numbers engaged will multiply.
That such thuggish behavior is
allegedly perpetrated primarily by religious nationalist radicals in
isolated settlements or outposts, represents additional cause for
concern. It must be recognized that some nationalist rabbis – including
many opposed to lawlessness - have failed to create the environment
which would neutralize xenophobic trends.
On the contrary, sadly, many
rabbis lacking worldliness fail to appreciate the impact of remarks
which bracket all Arabs with Amalek or accuse government leaders of
breaching Halacha by opposing settlement growth or dismantling
unauthorized outposts. Such attitudes encourage impressionable
youngsters to believe that the Torah approves their right to fight for
what they consider to be the will of the Almighty and grants them
license to suspend the law of the land and engage in violence.
It is insufficient for rabbis
to merely condemn such behavior. They must impress upon their students
that the Torah enjoins us to accept the laws of the land and that
vigilante justice and violence is no less a breach of Halacha than
failure to observe Shabbat or Kashrut. They should educate them about
the humanitarian elements of the Torah providing for minorities and
respecting all human beings.
Families living in isolated
settlements surrounded by animosity need to take especial care to ensure
that their children are not poisoned by the hatred surrounding them.
The late Dr. Yosef Burg, one of the great leaders of the religious
Zionist movement, once shared with me his gnawing concern about
youngsters living in settlements, surrounded by Arab masses radiating
hatred. He prophetically predicted that this virulent hatred could have a
catastrophic impact on those living in such an environment.
These are trying times. A
determined move must be made to use every social and physical sanction
against these “price tag” deviants until they understand that aside from
facing major criminal sanctions from law enforcement authorities, their
communities will shun and effectively excommunicate them unless they
cease these activities.
Finally, the “price tag” crimes
must be understood in the context of the extremist fringes that plague
this land. Ultimately, the seeds of fanaticism and extremism originate
from the visceral anger directed by Jews against one another.
For example, the religious MK
purporting to read the Almighty’s mind, proclaiming that Sharon’s
eight-year coma was divine punishment for displacing settlements. Or
worse, the head of the Hebron community – a known extremist – on the eve
of Sharon’s death, referring to him as a “monster”, said “I wasn’t sure
if I wanted to laugh or cry. Laugh because he’s leaving us or cry
because his ‘this world’ suffering is coming to an end.” He then warned
Prime Minister Netanyahu that if he becomes “contaminated” by Secretary
of State Kerry, “Sharon’s miserable fate will almost look good to you.”
His article was published by
Arutz Sheva which caters for settlers, the New York Jewish Press an
Orthodox weekly and, to my regret, as a blog in the Jerusalem Post. That
such an inflammatory article was published in any Jewish media is a
damning reflection on our declining standards of morality and propriety.
But even worse, there was hardly a murmur in response, aside from the
left joyfully depicting such vile outbursts as symptomatic of settler
fanaticism.
The idealistic religious
Zionist pioneers who built the early settlements and kibbutzim would
never have visualized any of their descendants becoming transformed into
such anti-intellectual, vicious amoral brutes. And if “religious”
youngsters can behave in this manner, what should we expect from the
next generation?
There is much at stake far
beyond the settlements. This ongoing vigilante violence could widen the
chasm between religious and non-religious Israelis and shake the very
moral foundation of the nation.
At this difficult time, we
should remind ourselves of Menahem Begin’s memorable words during the
withdrawal from Yamit: “Messianism is what brought about the destruction
of Jerusalem from within more than by the Romans from without.”
The writer’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com.He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com
This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom
Some of my recent articles:
Foreign Minister Lieberman cannot act as a Maverick (January 16, 2014)
An Open Letter to Secretary of State John Kerry (January 8, 2014)
Bayit Yehudi Cannot Remain Silent Over Rabbi Druckman (January 2, 2014)
Haaretz Debases Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (December 26, 2013)
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