Zionism's dying between Hebron and Yitzhar

[ProgressiveMuslim]

By Zeev Sternhell


"The Zionist Enterprise," said Berl Katznelson in 1929, when he summed up the first 10 years of the Ahdut Ha'Avoda movement, is a "conquest enterprise." And in the same breath he added: "It is not by chance that I am using military terms to describe the settlement of the country." And in fact, Zionism was a movement of conquest, and all means were permitted to carry out the task.

However, what was essential and therefore justified in the pre-state days is now assuming an ugly and violent form of colonial occupation: the authoritarian regime in the territories, the creation of two legal systems, the placing of the army and police at the service of the settlement movement, the robbing of Palestinian lands. These all symbolize not the fulfillment of Zionism but rather its burial. It is there, between Hebron and Yitzhar, that the settlements are burying the democratic Jewish state.

Like other colonial regimes, the government in the territories is trying to operate under cover of darkness. A visit organized by Peace Now three weeks ago, with about 250 participants, was forbidden to enter Hebron. The area was declared a closed military area by the head of the Hebron Brigade, but the Hebron police did not prevent local toughs from trying to attack the tour's participants. Nor did the police stop other cars that left and entered Hebron undisturbed. We can reasonably assume that had members of Likud and the National Religious Party come for a visit, the area would not have been closed, and the army would have been at the service of the visitors.
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The head of the Hebron Brigade is the same person who on another occasion could be seen on television rudely arresting the B'Tselem photographer: The man was recording what was happening before his eyes, and in the territories that is a serious crime. When there is a camera on-site, there is no possibility of denying cases of abuse and humiliation, or incidents such as shooting at a bound Palestinian.

But worst of all is the fact that behind the brigade commander - who is only a minor cog who operates in the spirit of his commanders, behind the battalion commander whose soldier pulled the trigger in Na'alin - lies the entire chain of command in the territories. These are the people in whose responsibility young soldiers are placed.

However, as far as the public is concerned, Ehud Barak is the person who bears overall responsibility for the partnership between the settlers and the security forces. We must immediately put an end to this and once and for all end the culture of violence that dominates in the territories, a culture that nurtures Jewish criminality and the daily harassment of the civilian Palestinian population.

Tours of the land of the settlers are a vital necessity for anyone who wants to learn about what is happening around him. Anyone who goes out in the field understands immediately that the problem does not lie in the so-called "illegal" outposts. Although the unwillingness to confront groups of toughs who flout the law and government decisions is a disgrace in itself, it is not the major obstacle to ending the occupation. The problem lies in the settlement movement itself, in the Israeli hunger for land.

The real reason for the settlements, first in the Golan Heights and later in the Jordan Valley and the central hill country, was occupying the land: The spiritual heirs and disciples of Berl Katznelson, and even those of his generation who were still alive, saw no reason not to continue the work. Realistic people like Levi Eshkol and Pinhas Sapir did not have an intellectual and moral answer to the demand to continue in the path that until then had been considered the only one known to Zionism. On the other side of the map stood the Revisionist right and Gush Emunim.

In sum, right and left were partners to the act. The nationalist-messianist fervor and the desire to end the War of Independence merged into the momentum for occupation: The entire right and most of the left - We have returned to the land of the Judges and the kings of the Davidian dynasty, said defense minister Moshe Dayan emotionally in the summer of 1967 - bear joint responsibility for the gradual creation of the disaster in which Israeli society is wallowing.

Since it was impossible to take control of the lands legally, a mafia-like culture of theft, lies and deception developed in the territories, in which the various government authorities are still wallowing, from ministers in tailored suits to the last of the policemen sweating on the highways. Contrary to the rules of international and Israeli law, contrary to elementary rules of justice, contrary to all logic and every genuine Israeli interest, broad areas were confiscated for the sake of the settlers and huge sums were poured in.

But over the years, the golem has risen up against its creator: When the public finally realized that if the Jewish national movement does not absorb universal foundations of human rights, democracy and the rule of law it will doom itself to destruction, a force had already arisen over the Green Line that now threatens to drown all of Israel.

read on...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1009632.html

[sharesunited]

1. You can't just call it a hunger for land.

It is hunger for heritage. There is so little geographical acreage to which the Jewish heart attaches. And an entire Middle East otherwise rich in Muslim shrines.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

2. That old meme? Sorry, the Palestinian heart doesn't ache for Marrakesh. nt

[sharesunited]

3. So tell me what happens to Hebron's Jews if the IDF withdraws?

Aren't they driven out by Palestinian bigots?

[Sezu]

4. Oh no, they will be showered with flowers, candies and kisses

etc....unless they are greenhouses.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Sezu]

6. There are lots of evil bastards in Palestine too. n/t

[sharesunited]

7. Yep, it's been some insane shit all right, and I won't try to justify it.

Just want to see some godly love and sharing rule the limbic cortex.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

8. Do you consider that the Hebron setlers have behaved decently, and deserve to

be treated with respect?

[sharesunited]

9. They've behaved with self-righteous arrogance for being so impossibly outnumbered.

[azurnoir]

10. And under IDF guard too

why who would believe the "arrogance" of those brave Jewish or is it Israeli hero's, who only last week bravely through a kid off a roof

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x220885

[Violet_Crumble]

11. Self-righteous arrogance? Try violence, murder, and advocating ethnic cleansing...

Read this article from 2004, and tell me whether you think they've behaved decently and deserve respect..

'Rabbi Levinger approached. For many years, he has been the face of the settlement movement, which is no favor; his head is small, but his eyes are bulbous and his teeth outsized. His voice is deep, and his beard seems constructed of iron shavings. I said hello. He grunted a reply.

I told him that the police seemed uneasy about his presence in the tomb, and I asked whether they were worried that he would lash out at the Palestinians.

“The Arabs know to behave like good boys around us,” he said.

Levinger first came to Hebron in 1968, after Israel seized the West Bank in the Six-Day War. He rented rooms in an Arab hotel, in order to hold a Passover Seder. Then he refused to leave. He struck a deal with the Israeli government, and moved his family and his followers to a hill just northeast of Hebron, where, with the state’s coöperation, they built the settlement called Kiryat Arba. There are now seven thousand settlers there. In 1979, his wife, Miriam, led a group of settler women in an unruly takeover of the Hadassah House building. The squatters stayed, and a community grew up around them.

In 1988, Levinger killed a Palestinian shoe-store owner in Hebron. Levinger told the police that he was defending himself from a group of stone throwers. He served thirteen weeks in an Israeli jail for the killing. He told me once, “I’m not happy when any living creature dies—an Arab, a fly, a donkey.”

In the Israel he envisaged, Levinger said, Arabs would be allowed to stay only so long as they “behave themselves. Foreign residents”—Levinger’s designation for Arabs—“will be allowed to stay in Israel if they follow our laws and don’t demand privileges.” He added that they might vote “for mayors and such” but not for Prime Minister. He did not believe that the Arabs would acquiesce to such an arrangement, and that is why he advocated “transfer”—a euphemism for mass expulsion. “Whoever hurts Jews will be expelled,” he said.'

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/31/040531fa_fact2_a?currentPage=all

[sharesunited]

12. No Violet, this is an atrocity. The IDF lacks proper discipline.

Disarm the settlers and enforce civil order.

[breakaleg]

16. So it's not their fault. They are violent because they are surrounded by Palestinians. In the West

Bank. Got it.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

13. Do you yourself share that feeling?

I am curious. Is your heart attached to that "acreage?"

It seems to me that flesh and blood Palestinians pay for their lives to satisfy this psychological need of Western Jews to "attach their heart."

I'm of Finnish extraction, but I harbor no plans to go start a colony in the outskirts of Helsinki. I happily explore my heritage in ways that don't mean people are locked in their homes for days on end, so I can parade around with a gun to feel like a man.

Is there anything about the Hebron settler phenomenon that you think is reasonable and would defend?

I seriously wonder if you have any idea of what their minimal presence has meant for the 100s of thousands of Arabs who live in Hebron? The disruption? The curfews? The violence?

[Vegasaurus]

14. That tired old meme again, of the "Western Jews"?

850,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries, many of whom settled in Israel.

They are no more "Western" than the Palestinians.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

17. Adding "settler cheerleader" to your 3 other talking points? nt

[Vegasaurus]

19. What part of pointing out that Israelis are not all "Western Jews"

but displaced peoples from Arab lands (who can't reclaim their homes or livlihoods, since they were stolen) makes me a "settler cheerleader"?

Way to deflect the point!

Israel is not made up of "WESTERN JEWS".

There are Ethiopians, Russians, Egyptians, Iraqi, Iranian, and yes, German and New Yorkers too, among various other original nationalities.

But the predominant number are not WESTERN Jews.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

21. You don't notice a preponderance of NY accents proclaiming "This is MOY land?"

I've always found that rather ironic.

[henank]

22. No I don't.

Not at all. I wonder if you've ever actually been to Israel, or if you are just spouting propaganda that has been dripfed into your brain by the likes of Electronic Intifada. Americans are a very small minority of Israeli citizens.

[Vegasaurus]

26. Very small indeed

I wonder why these posters continue to post propaganda and nonsense about Israel.

They seem to understand nothing of the ethnic makeup of Israelis, choosing to believe that Israelis are all New YAWKers, which couldn't be further from the truth.

Why they don't know that there are Egyptian Jews, Iraqi Jews, Iranian Jews, Moroccan (the former all kicked out of their former homes by Arabs) and Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, etc. and none of these people resemble the American Israeli stereotype perpetrated by people here.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

31. Actually, I've lived in Ramallah and Khan Younis. Most of my opinions are formed by first-hand

observation.

The obnoxious American settlers I'm referring to are the ones who tend to be featured in news documentaries. I've been repeatedly struck by the irony of Westerners who claim their god-given right to Israel, while people who were actually born there, like my husband, are shut out.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

43. No comment, Henank? nt

[azurnoir]

15. A question for Zionists of any political persuasion

Zionism it would seem accomplished it's stated purpose, which was the establishment of a Jewish state 60 years ago, so why is it still an active political movement unless in truth that purpose has not really been accomplished-yet, and the Jewish state is still in it's growth stage.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

18. This is indeed the $64,000 question. That's why it's met with silence.

[azurnoir]

25. And quite sadly

the one I really wanted to hear from did not reply, that would be LB.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

32. You should PM her.

Frankly, I find the term "progressive Zionist" sort of an oxymoron, but I think most people who use that to describe themselves tend to be political liberals who favor a 2-state solution without further expansion.

[LeftishBrit]

35. That is certainly how I use the term.

I am not in favour of further expansion; quite the opposite in fact.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

36. So for you, a zionist is one who supports the state of Israel, or

the idea of the state of Israel, if not all its policies?

[LeftishBrit]

37. Yes, basically

It means someone who thinks that the state of Israel should continue to exist, and does not imply support for the present occupation, let alone further expansion; or for its government's policies.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

38. Sort of renders the word meaningless, IMO.

[LeftishBrit]

40. I wish it were meaningless...

just as it is relatively meaningless to seek a special word for 'support for the continued existence of Britain/France/America'.

I myself am not entirely happy with the term, because it has so many conflicting meanings, some of which imply things that I don't support. But as long as there are people who think that Israel should cease to exist, there has to be a term for people who disagree with that view. And there are a number of people who do think that Israel should cease to exist. In my experience, these are often not basing the opinion primarily on pro-Palestinian views, but on the idea that the existence of Israel is one of the main reasons for war in the world and/or that it controls other countries, and if it just ceased to exist it would solve a lot of the world's problems. I am against this view, and consider it dangerous, and as long as it exists, 'Zionism' still does have a meaning.

[Vegasaurus]

41. Absolutely Zionism has a meaning

for precisely those reasons you and I both mentioned.

There will be no need for Zionist supporters when the state of Israel is accepted in the world, there isn't rampant anti-semitism, and blame for all the world's problems isn't only on Jews.

Until then, a safe haven is imperative.

I will continue to support Israel, as a Zionist.

[Vegasaurus]

39. What are the beliefs of a "Progressive Muslim"?

Does a progressive Muslim favor a two state solution?

I think I have read here that you favor a single state.

[LeftishBrit]

34. Actually I just did.

[Vegasaurus]

20. Speaking for myself

the beliefs of some posters here are exactly why I am an active Zionist.

There are many, many people in the world who still want to deny Jews a national homeland, a safe place from persecution.

Zionism exists because too many people hate Jews, and we are not allowed to live freely in many places in the world. We are blamed for all of the world's problems, unrest caused by other peoples, or internal civil wars.

I will continue to be an active Zionist, in support of the state of Israel, because Jews need a place that they can live in peace and security.

[henank]

23. Why are you so scared of Zionists?

What is it about that word that creates a bogeyman in your fevered imagination?

Zionism is, as Vegasaurus explained, the political movement to create a Jewish homeland. Indeed you may say the Jewish homeland has been created, but it needs to be maintained and strengthened. It is in no way stable or secure as long as it is surrounded by hostile enemies who wish to see it destroyed, and for that reason Zionism in all its forms, political, religious, national, will continue.

read all about it

[azurnoir]

24. Short of the hysteria contained in your response

" Why are you so scared of Zionists?What is it about that word that creates a bogeyman in your fevered imagination?

Why the hyperbole? fear of a question or the answer? I already stated that Zionism was a political movement to establish a Jewish homeland and it did quite successfully 60 years ago. As to maintaining that homeland perhaps I am mistaken but doesn't that homeland have a government and military to maintain and protect it?
The one purpose I could see for Zionism is to encourage emigration from other countries, but that was not mentioned. Fear Zionism, no not really but do believe what ever you must to a degree it gives somethings away, like paranoia.
Oh and why is that certain posters feel the need to double space their posts "pufferfish" syndrome?

[Vegasaurus]

27. In case you haven't noticed,

there are 22 Arab countries surrounding Israel, many of which are hostile.

Even the ones with "peace agreements" print hideous anti-semitic messages in their media routinely.

Many have expressed their desire to annihilate Israel.

There is world-wide anti-semitism, that is on the increase.

So, so sorry that you don't see the need for people to be active Zionists.

It isn't paranoia, it's reality. We need a homeland for safety and security, and will continue to have it, until such time that some idiot with a hot finger drops a bomb on Israel, and then all hell will break loose.

Are you in favor of that?

[azurnoir]

28. Oh my there's 22 Islamic (majority) countries

and there are 1.2 billion Muslims and that is the low estimate, that comes out to 54.5 million Muslims per country vs 13 million Jews 1 country and less that half that number actually choose to live there.

So now that we're over the hyperbole, no one is suggesting Israel should not exist it is Israel's continued attempt to expand territory and I am going per your own comments on the subject insinuating if not plainly stating that the longer the Palestinians negotiate and refuse to bow to Israel's demands the more settlements will be built and less territory the Palestinians will get, which is also a statement of the settlements being permanent, something that is yet to determined.

[Vegasaurus]

29. I have never ever said anything of the sort

Not all the settlements, that is.

Some will be permanent, and I think you know that. That land will be traded for equivalent or more land for the Palestinian state.

Half of all the world's Jews live in Israel, which is a HUGE number, considering the small number (relatively) of Jews worldwide.

My point was only that Zionism exists, and will continue to be well supported because there continues to be a threat to its existence, and to worldwide Jewry.

[Sezu]

30. Zionism is way too complex to be defined as a

"political movement." Far too few really understand that reality. The goals of Zionists are many and varied and often at odds with fellow Zionists. Reduction is invalid.

[LeftishBrit]

33. Zionism nowadays...

simply means support for the *continued* existence of a state of Israel. It should really be as unnecessary as a specific term for 'supporting the continued existence of America' or 'supporting the continued existence of France'. But since there are still people who are ideologically opposed to the existence of Israel, the concept of Zionism is unfortunately still relevant.

[azurnoir]

42. Thank you

although I am not to sure there are not those"ideologically" opposed to the existence of the US and the UK would be running 3rd in that one too.