MidEast Report

POST-ZIONISM?
(from Haaretz)

The Jewish settlers in the territories replaced loyalty to the state with loyalty to the Torah. Today it can be said with certainty that there is hardly any discourse between the secular public and the Jewish settlers in the territories that is based on rational arguments. In a desperate attempt to convince the settlers, their secular interlocutors warn them about the loss of the Jewish majority and the danger to democracy. The trouble is that these arguments arouse scorn among the settlers. All the talk about demography and democracy and human rights looks like nonsense to those who have sworn loyalty to the Torah of Israel.

The public of settlers in the territories and its leaders have changed. They are the real post-Zionists in the sense that they have adopted a stance according to which the Jewish people is outside the perimeter of human history. Therefore earthly considerations and liberal values - like demography and democracy - do not apply to it. Facing them stands a secular public in which there are very many who believe that Israel belongs to the family of nations and therefore is subject to the rules that guide the international community, among them the demand to pull out of most of the territories. This is why in advance of the big battle for the future of the territories, secular right-wingers are expected to follow Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Industry and Trade Minister Ehud Olmert and Dan Meridor in their understanding of the danger that the land of the Jewish settlements poses to the state of Israel.

The national religious public, which in the past made great efforts to be a part of practical Zionism, has abandoned it. In the eyes of this public, practical Zionism has surrendered to exhaustion and universal values.

Interesting formulation there: practical Zionism has surrendered to universal values, that is, it has abandoned the idea of Jewish exceptionalism and the goal of a "Greater Israel" stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, which they claim God promised to them some 3000 years ago.

It's not very often reported in U.S. media what a destabilizing force the settler movement represents in Israel, and thus by extension to the entire Middle East. We see endless stories of Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians, violence which should be condemned and rejected, but I don't think many in my country understand the daily harassment and violence committed by settlers against Palestinians, and more importantly, that it is the presence of the settlements on Palestinian lands which makes the occupation necessary.

Israel's State-Assisted Terrorism: "Settlers" as Armed Combatants.

Settler Violence against Palestinian School Children in Hebron.

Settler fined for clubbing Arab boy to death.
That's right, friends, he was fined. As if he had parked in a damn loading zone.

posted by Matt Duss @ 9:40 AM