michael
10-28-2002, 05:46 AM
"The entire settlement enterprise began 35 years ago with an incident similar to this week's - an illegal settlement, which the government then retroactively legalized at the urging of several misguided intellectuals. The battle over Havat Gilad is reminiscent of that beginning, which has since, together with Palestinian terror, pushed the state into a political and spiritual blind alley. Ten years after 1967, there were still only 31 settlements with 4,400 inhabitants. Now there are more than 120 "legal" settlements with almost 50 times as many settlers. There are also some 90 illegal outposts containing 700 to 1,000 zealots obsessed with rocks. The battle against the removal of these outposts has become one of the most dangerous of all the settlement tactics. The threat they constitute is far greater than one weekend's rioting.
How can they be removed? The government knows how. It has displayed great initiative this year every time it decided to liquidate terror. The outposts are also a danger, and a particularly grave one, as they constitute an internal threat that is partially clothed - through the leadership of self-righteous rabbis and people such as Effi Eitam - in a proto-fascist style.
Ariel Sharon was quite capable of evacuating the settlements of Pithat Rafiah in order to enable an agreement with Egypt. He has chosen not to exercise his ability this time around for a reason that cuts to the heart of the matter: He does not want another agreement in exchange for far-reaching concessions. Since the days when Sharon's bitter rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, occupied the Prime Minister's Office, 106 outposts have sprung up. About one-third have received the same extorted retroactive approvals as Tel Rumeida did in the early days. The rest are illegal by any standard, or else they are shrouded in creative ambiguity.
Why remove them? Not only for the simple reason that the Jewish zealots of the West Bank are making a mockery of the law - like the outpost of Migron, for instance, which began with a Cellcom transponder and went on to a mikveh (ritual bath) for 20 families. These outposts must be removed because they are incubators for the ugliest trends in Israel over the last generation. Behind their pretensions to "a new Zionism" lies that same mix of messianism, contempt for any considerations of state and the legitimization of almost any means for the sake of an illegal end. And they are defended by politicians with proto-fascist tendencies who have never before penetrated the inner circles of the government in such force.
Why fascist? Because, even by the most dispassionate definition, people like Eitam fit the specifications of this European concept. The sanctity of the land, even beyond the boundaries of the state; the worthiness of blood sacrifice for areas beyond the horizon; the abstract concepts of the significance of the people and the homeland; and the readiness to use the nation's military might for the sake of all of the above. Israel, according to Eitam, is not just a pragmatic entity whose goal is to worry about the welfare of its residents. Its raison d'etre, from the Jordan to the sea, is "to reveal the image of God in the world ... to be the Noah's Ark of the future ... to reveal God's workings in history," and other idiocies that compete with the most degenerate texts from the height of German and Italian romanticism.
Thus, among other consequences, a moderate movement such as the National Religious Party has become a rabid, extremist party. Using its power as a kingmaker, together with its secular allies on the far-right fringe, it has created an Israeli politics of total rejection. In a sudden shift, it chose a leader, primarily due to public opinion polls, who, in its opinion, had the ability to rack up achievements among an increasingly extreme and frightened electorate that loathes Arabs and thirsts for vengeance. One of the principal tools of this stream, which has been abandoned by men of intellect and spirit, is to burrow into rocky hills in the heart of the Palestinian population - the more crowded, the better. And Israeli crypto-fascism, armed with vague religiosity, tries to bestow upon these land grab swindles an image of heroism and renewal.
Even if the settlement enterprise were not a huge barrier to any agreement, the behavior that fuels it constitutes a national threat because of its creeping Jewish fascism, which is still hidden from the eyes of most Israelis. The extremist, fundamentalist settler right - for all the innocence of some of its activists - has rapidly become a threat from within no less frightening that the terror from without. That is the reason it must be fought uncompromisingly."
Gideon Samet,
Ha’aretz, Oct 23, 2002.
Has continued Palestinian terrorism further radicalised the fundamentalist right to this extent?
How can they be removed? The government knows how. It has displayed great initiative this year every time it decided to liquidate terror. The outposts are also a danger, and a particularly grave one, as they constitute an internal threat that is partially clothed - through the leadership of self-righteous rabbis and people such as Effi Eitam - in a proto-fascist style.
Ariel Sharon was quite capable of evacuating the settlements of Pithat Rafiah in order to enable an agreement with Egypt. He has chosen not to exercise his ability this time around for a reason that cuts to the heart of the matter: He does not want another agreement in exchange for far-reaching concessions. Since the days when Sharon's bitter rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, occupied the Prime Minister's Office, 106 outposts have sprung up. About one-third have received the same extorted retroactive approvals as Tel Rumeida did in the early days. The rest are illegal by any standard, or else they are shrouded in creative ambiguity.
Why remove them? Not only for the simple reason that the Jewish zealots of the West Bank are making a mockery of the law - like the outpost of Migron, for instance, which began with a Cellcom transponder and went on to a mikveh (ritual bath) for 20 families. These outposts must be removed because they are incubators for the ugliest trends in Israel over the last generation. Behind their pretensions to "a new Zionism" lies that same mix of messianism, contempt for any considerations of state and the legitimization of almost any means for the sake of an illegal end. And they are defended by politicians with proto-fascist tendencies who have never before penetrated the inner circles of the government in such force.
Why fascist? Because, even by the most dispassionate definition, people like Eitam fit the specifications of this European concept. The sanctity of the land, even beyond the boundaries of the state; the worthiness of blood sacrifice for areas beyond the horizon; the abstract concepts of the significance of the people and the homeland; and the readiness to use the nation's military might for the sake of all of the above. Israel, according to Eitam, is not just a pragmatic entity whose goal is to worry about the welfare of its residents. Its raison d'etre, from the Jordan to the sea, is "to reveal the image of God in the world ... to be the Noah's Ark of the future ... to reveal God's workings in history," and other idiocies that compete with the most degenerate texts from the height of German and Italian romanticism.
Thus, among other consequences, a moderate movement such as the National Religious Party has become a rabid, extremist party. Using its power as a kingmaker, together with its secular allies on the far-right fringe, it has created an Israeli politics of total rejection. In a sudden shift, it chose a leader, primarily due to public opinion polls, who, in its opinion, had the ability to rack up achievements among an increasingly extreme and frightened electorate that loathes Arabs and thirsts for vengeance. One of the principal tools of this stream, which has been abandoned by men of intellect and spirit, is to burrow into rocky hills in the heart of the Palestinian population - the more crowded, the better. And Israeli crypto-fascism, armed with vague religiosity, tries to bestow upon these land grab swindles an image of heroism and renewal.
Even if the settlement enterprise were not a huge barrier to any agreement, the behavior that fuels it constitutes a national threat because of its creeping Jewish fascism, which is still hidden from the eyes of most Israelis. The extremist, fundamentalist settler right - for all the innocence of some of its activists - has rapidly become a threat from within no less frightening that the terror from without. That is the reason it must be fought uncompromisingly."
Gideon Samet,
Ha’aretz, Oct 23, 2002.
Has continued Palestinian terrorism further radicalised the fundamentalist right to this extent?