http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/961/focus.htm
20 - 26 August 2009
Issue No. 961
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
Religious fundamentalism in Israel
Since the origin of the Zionist enterprise, fundamentalism has been part of the
Jewish state project. Until now, this largely goes unacknowledged, writes
Stephen Lendman*
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'The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews -- all of
them in all different levels -- is greater and deeper than the difference
between a human soul and the souls of cattle' -- Rabbi Abraham Kook
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In the book Jewish History, Jewish Religion, by Israel Shahak (1933-2001), it
is argued that while Islamic fundamentalism is vilified in the West, comparable
Jewish extremism is largely ignored. In the book's foreword, Edward Said wrote:
"... Shahak's mode of telling the truth has always been rigorous and
uncompromising. There is nothing seductive about it, no attempt made to put it
'nicely,' no effort expended on making the truth palatable... For Shahak
killing is murder is killing is murder: his manner is to repeat. (He) shows
that the obscure, narrowly chauvinist prescriptions against various undesirable
Others are to be found in Judaism (as in other monotheistic religions) but he
always goes on to show the continuity between those and the way Israel treats
Palestinians, Christians and other non-Jews. A devastating portrait of
prejudice, hypocrisy and religious intolerance emerges."
Shahak's Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel picked up on the theme in explaining
its pervasive, destructive influence in Israeli politics, the military and
society. He noted that substituting German or Aryan for Jewish and non-Jews for
Jews makes it easy to see how a superiority doctrine made an earlier genocide
possible and is letting another happen now. Shahak called all forms of bigotry
morally reprehensible and said: "Any form of racism, discrimination and
xenophobia becomes more potent and politically influential if it is taken for
granted by the society which indulges in it." For Israeli Jews, he believed,
"The support of democracy and human rights is... meaningless or even harmful
and deceitful when it does not begin with self-critique and with support of
human rights when they are violated by one's own group. Any support of human
rights for non-Jews whose rights are being violated by the 'Jewish state' is as
deceitful as the support of human rights by a Stalinist..."
THE BIRTH OF MESSIANIC ZIONISM: As a leading Israeli human rights activist and
Holocaust survivor, Shahak reviewed Jewish fundamentalist history, examined its
currents, and explained the dangers of extremist messianic ones. They oppose
equality of Jews and non-Jews and destroy democratic values by espousing dogma,
calling Jews superior to all others.
The earlier influence of fundamentalist Rabbi Abraham Kook (1865-1935), or Kuk,
was significant. He preached Jewish supremacy and said: "The difference between
a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews -- all of them in all different levels --
is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of
cattle." His teachings helped create the settler movement, and his son, Rabbi
Tzvi Yehuda Kook, founded the extremist Gush Emunim (GE) under the slogan: "The
Land of Israel, for the people of Israel, according to the Torah of Israel."
Like the elder Kook, GE sees state power as a way forward to a new messianic
era. It believes that God created the world for Jews. Others are lesser beings.
Greater Israel belongs to Jews alone, and holy wars are acceptable to attain it.
Kook was Israel's first chief rabbi. In his honour, and to continue his
teachings, the extremist Merkaz Harav (the Rabbi's Centre) was founded in 1924
as a yeshiva or fundamentalist religious college. It teaches that, "non-Jews
living under Jewish law in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) must either be
enslaved as water carriers and wood hewers, or banished, or exterminated."
It gets no more extremist than that, and highlights the dangers for
Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories. Their lives and welfare
are being sacrificed for a Greater Israel of Jews alone.
THE RELIGIOUS WAR: Gush Emunim adherents and other Israeli religious zealots
plan it. They're active in politics, hold seats in the Knesset, are Netanyahu
government coalition partners (including Shas, United Torah and Yisrael
Beiteinu) and are prominently represented in Israel's military throughout its
ranks and rabbinate. Chief military rabbi, Brigadier General Avichai Rontzki,
called Operation Cast Lead a "religious war" in which it was "immoral" to show
mercy to an enemy of "murderers". Many others feel the same way, prominently
among them graduates of Hesder Yeshivat schools that combine extremist
religious indoctrination with military service to defend the Jewish state.
In 1981, Rabbi Harav Lichtenstein's article, "The Ideology of Hesder: The View
from Yeshivat Har Etzion", explained that: "Hesder... seeks to attract and
develop bnei torah (religious individuals) who are profoundly motivated by the
desire to become serious and talmidei machamim (religiously knowledgeable) but
who concurrently feel morally and religiously bound to help defend their people
and their country; who... regard this dual commitment as both a privilege and a
duty... it thus enables them to maintain an integrated Jewish experience."
Nearly all Hesder graduates perform combat service for up to six years. Today
41 schools operate throughout Israel. In 1991, Hesder was awarded the Israel
Prize (the state's highest honour) for its exceptional service to the nation.
One commander expressed how many feel in explaining the military's mission: "We
are the Jewish people. We came to this land by a miracle. God brought us back
to this land and now we need to fight to expel the Gentiles who are interfering
with our conquest of this holy land."
Extremist Israeli rabbis teach this ideology, and in 2003 Rabbi Saadya Grama,
in Romemut Yisrael Ufarashat Hagalut (The Majesty of Israel and the Question of
the Diaspora), argued that non-Jews are "completely evil" while Jews are
genetically superior. Reform and conservative rabbis condemned it. Extremist
orthodox ones endorsed it. More moderate rabbis said Grama advocates separating
Jews from an intrinsically hostile anti-Semitic world. Rabbi Yosef Blau called
the book "a call for a superior people to withdraw from the world and live in
isolation while submitting to its enemies and placing trust in God."
THE NEAR THREAT OF EXTREMISM: Others in Israel teach the extremist notion that
the 10 Commandments don't apply to non-Jews. So killing them in defending the
homeland is acceptable, and according to Rabbi Dov Lior, chairman of the Jewish
Rabbinic Council: "There is no such thing as enemy civilians in war time. The
law of our Torah is to have mercy on our soldiers and to save them... A
thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail."
Rabbi David Batsri called Arabs "a blight, a devil, a disaster... donkeys, and
we have to ask ourselves why God didn't create them to walk on all fours. Well,
the answer is that they are needed to build and clean." Extremist zealots want
them for no other purpose in Jewish society.
In 2007, Israel's former chief rabbi, Mordechai Elyahu, called for the Israeli
army to mass murder Palestinians. In fanatical language he said: "If they don't
stop after we kill 100, then we must kill 1,000. And if they don't stop after
1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000.
Even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."
In March 2009, Safed's chief rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu called for "state-sponsored
revenge" to restore "Israel's deterrence... It's time to call the child by its
name: revenge, revenge, revenge. We mustn't forget. We have to take horrible
revenge for the terrorist attack at Mercaz Harav yeshiva," referring to an
earlier incident in which eight students died. "I am not talking about
individual people in particular. I'm talking about the state. (It) has to pain
them where they scream 'Enough,' to the point where they fall flat on their
face and scream 'help!'"
In June 2009, US Hasidic Rabbi Manis Friedman voiced a similar sentiment in
calling on Israel to kill Palestinian "men, women and children". "I don't
believe in Western morality, ie don't kill civilians or children, don't destroy
holy sites, don't fight during the holiday seasons, don't bomb cemeteries, and
don't shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral. The only way to fight
a moral war is the Jewish way: destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and
children (and cattle)."
Views like these aren't exceptions. Though a minority, they proliferate
throughout Israeli society, and are common enough to incite violence against
Palestinians, even when they rightfully defend themselves as international law
allows.
THE BROADER THREAT OF EXTREMISM: Israeli extremists are a minority but
influential enough to make policy, and therein lies the threat to peace and
likelihood of a sovereign Palestinian state. In his book, A Little Too Close to
God, David Horovitz recalled that before prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's
assassination he attended a Netanyahu-sponsored anti-Rabin rally he described
as follows: "I felt as if I were among wild animals, vicious, angry predators
craving flesh and scenting blood. There was elation in the anger, elation bred
of the certainty of eventual success."
In his book, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence,
Professor Mark Juergensmeyer compared the similarities among
religious-motivated extremists, whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu,
Buddhist, Sikh or others. He related a conversation with Yoel Lerner who was
imprisoned for trying to blow up the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim holy site,
because he believed that an ancient Jewish temple stood there before it was
destroyed. He expressed messianic Zionism in saying the "Messiah will come to
earth only after the temple is rebuilt and made ready for him," so Jews must
assure it's done. These views are prominent in high places and throughout
Israeli society -- that is, religious fervour for a Greater Israel for Jews
only, a Jewish state excluding all Arabs with violence an acceptable tool to
remove them, and conflict will continue until they're gone.
REPORTS ON JEWISH EXTREMISTS: On 24 June, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency wrote a
special report on Jewish extremists in which it described, "the face of radical
Jewish nationalism in Israel... a movement of settler youths, rabbis, leaders
and supporters determined to hold onto the West Bank at any cost." They
represent a minority, but are a "vocal and increasingly violent constituency of
the Jewish settler movement" rampaging against Palestinians and Israelis,
confident that God is on their side, and that one day a "Torah-based theocracy
(will) triumph over the State of Israel."
Rabbi Yisrael Iriel is one of its adherents, preaching Jewish superiority and
unwillingness to cede any part of biblical Israel to non-Jews. He is one of a
"small group of (extremist) rabbis who provide the theological and ideological
underpinnings for radical settlers." The Israeli human rights group Yesh Din
believes they number about 1,000 but exert considerable influence nonetheless.
They constitute an extremist fringe element, determined to use violence to
achieve their goals, and are supported by other West Bank settlers. One young
adherent expressed their agenda by saying, "I think God chose a good and
beautiful land for us," and we'll fight to keep it. If so, it makes peaceful
resolution harder than ever to achieve, especially with political hard-liners
in charge and most Israelis supporting them.
HATE LITERATURE TO ISRAELI SOLDIERS: Until discontinued on 20 July, a booklet
published by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, in
cooperation with Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu, entitled, "On Either Side of the Border"
was given to Israeli army soldiers containing hateful fiction purported to be
true. It suggested that the Pope and Vatican cardinals sympathised with
Hizbullah's struggle and conspired with the organisation to kill Jews. It
claimed that the Vatican organised Auschwitz tours to teach its members how to
do it, and that Hizbullah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was invited to join a
delegation to tour France, Poland, Italy and the Vatican.
The booklet also accused European politicians and journalists of conspiring
against Israel. Rabbi Eliahu's aide, David Menahemov, claimed the booklet's
material was true, even though the account portrayed was preposterous. Yet one
Israeli soldier said everyone in the ranks reads and believes it. Many soldiers
told him, "Read this and you'll understand who the Arabs are [and why the
Israeli cause is just]."
During Operation Cast Lead, 10,000 mp3s were also distributed to Israeli forces
with recorded extremist sermons. Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger urged
soldiers to "trust in God and know that war is being waged for the
sanctification of His name ... and not to fear. [Soldiers] should not think of
[their] wi(ves) or children or [their] mother (s) and father(s)."
Chief Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar called the Gaza conflict "a holy mission that
is being waged in the name of the entire Jewish people." Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu
said, "Our intention is to uplift soldiers' spirits" in battle against Hamas
terrorists. The Israeli army rabbinate division, Jewish Consciousness Field
(JCF), also distributed a pamphlet entitled "Jewish Consciousness Emphases for
Cast Lead" calling military rabbis "Anointed Priests of War."
A JCF officer, Shmuel Yurman, explained the pamphlet's purpose as follows:
"This is the hour to strengthen our fighters in this heavenly commanded war
that they have the merit to wage. Each (rabbi) has the knowledge and skills
needed to contribute to the IDF battle spirit. Nevertheless, in order to
enlighten and focus the spiritual message, JCF learned and prepared itself for
this war before the operation began and as it was being fought. In meetings
with soldiers and officers on the southern front we listened to the spiritual
needs."
The head of JCF head, Rabbi Tzadok Ben-Artzi, justified the war saying: "We,
the people who contributed to the world the book of books, who want to build a
society based on creativity and peace, love of mankind and faith in good, find
ourselves chased by blind hatred that is motivated by 'religious' terminology
and aspires to bloodshed and cruelty." He advised Israeli army rabbis to say
that the war's aim is "to save the Jewish people from its enemies" and
eradicate evil in the world. Other extremist rabbis voiced the same sentiment,
and, under Brigadier General Avichai Ronzki's command, the Israeli army's
rabbinate theologised military missions and fed messianic dogma to young minds.
Many in the ranks are already zealots enough to make spreading this gospel all
the easier.
DIFFERENT SIDES OF ISRAEL'S RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY: Ronzki explains his actions
and those of the military rabbinate by saying that "[we're] supposed to deal
with helping soldiers to internalise Jewish values, spirit and consciousness as
presented in Jewish sources. This is our main function as rabbis... (to)
teach... what Judaism is." He and other zealots represent one side of Israel's
religious community, comprised of two major groups -- religious Zionists and
Charedim. Governed by their ideology, the former believe in the special
relationship between God and Jews and see Israel from that perspective. They
comprise about two-thirds of the religious community and eight per cent of the
population.
Representing the other third and about 4.5 per cent of the population, the
Charedim see Israel as a secular state, like most others in the country.
Ethnicity also defines religious segments. Sephardic Jews originated from the
Middle East, North Africa and Spain. Ashkenazi Jews are from Eastern Europe and
differ in religious and cultural traditions. Both communities attend separate
synagogues in different neighbourhoods, yet are represented in religious
Zionist and Charedim camps. Israel has two chief rabbis, one Ashkenazi, the
other Sephardic.
Though a minority, Israel's religious community wields considerable influence
politically, in the military and society overall. Moreover, synagogues and
yeshivas are popular places where people gather to discuss issues of common
interest and hear the views of their rabbinical leaders. The most extreme
believe in Jewish sovereignty over all biblical Israel, so foregoing any of it
is unthinkable. Thirteenth century Rabbi Moses Ben Nachman was their spiritual
godfather. He wrote that Jews "should settle in the land and inherit it,
because He gave it to them, and they should not reject God's inheritance." Now
rabbis say it is "a mitzvah (commandment) to settle in the land and it is
forbidden to leave it."
THE MESSIANIC COMING: What Rabbi Avraham Kook preached on the dependence of the
coming of the messiah with Jews claiming hold on Israel also stands today.
Today's most extreme zealots believe that conceding any biblical land will
delay or subvert messianic redemption, and so can't be tolerated. Palestinians
are called enemies for wanting land of their own. Yielding violates Jewish law,
zealots believe.
In contrast, secular Charedim accept land concessions for peace and want the
government to make policy, not religious Zionists based on biblical law. They
believe Israel should serve the interests of all Jews, not one segment over
another, and feel no part of Israel is too sacred to concede (except Jerusalem)
if it best serves the Jewish people overall. They also believe that the Torah
promotes peaceful co-existence and, except for defence, conflict is
counterproductive. Like religious Zionists, they feel all biblical Israel
belongs to the Jews, yet they're willing to concede some in the interests of
peace.
Most religious Israelis fall somewhere in- between these groups. They believe
that biblical Israel was promised to Jews, yet accept compromise to one degree
or another to preserve life and serve the best interests of all Jews. How the
future balance of power shifts from one side to the other will greatly
influence the makeup of future Israeli governments and determine whether
peaceful co- existence can replace over six decades of conflict and repression.
So far it hasn't, and nothing suggests it will any time soon; not while
extremist Zionists run the government, serve prominently in the Israeli army,
and -- according to critics -- are gaining more power incrementally.
* The writer is a research associate of the Centre for Research on
Globalisation.
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