Reminders of injustice

Are you saying that people who defend israel from boycott campaigns and attempts to isolate the jewish state, by definition automatically support any violence and injustice against palestinians, so long as it somehow furthers zionism?

Because that’s simply not true.

You know that.

If you blog about ideological or irrational settler violence, I would hope that noone here would defend it.

If you blog about why israel deserves special condemnation from christians, then many people here would strongly disagree.

If you think that our disagreement about anti-zionist boycotts extends to wishing misfortune on others, you would be very wrong.

In just this one comment, I hope I am speaking on behalf of all zionists who contribute here.

Sorry richard, I just assumed when the article talks about people supporting israel’s actions, well people could take that to mean anything.

Even subtly, some people might read that and think that, if someone disagrees about how israel is treated in the public sphere, she is doing so because she thinks her god will soon smite the palestinians and give her their possessions.

I just want to make clear this is not the case.

But I apologise if you felt I unjustly accused you.

As long as Zionism refers to the assertion of Jewish identity and Jewish connection to the land, it is not only defensible, it is righteous. It only becomes problematical, indeed deplorable, when it becomes an ideology (particularly a religious ideology) of colonisation and dispossession - i.e., a justification for the expulsion and exclusion of the Palestinians from the land, and their daily oppression and humiliation by a vastly asymmetrical deployment of power. No one can be at home when any are in exile.

I submit that the only godly and, ultimately, feasible way forward is for a growing joint Israeli-Palestinian peace movement (and I think ideally led by women ) that works for a just distribution and joint habitation of the land. Thank God that, despite the fearful, the hateful, and the violent - the “Never! Never! Never!” brigade on both sides - there are bold, determined, compassionate, wise, and imaginative Israelis and Palestinians who embrace this challenge.

Thanks dh, didn’t doubt you! Yes, there are some ideologues who would justify any violence against arabs, but they aren’t many. Most settlers move to these areas because that is where affordable housing is provided - whether the israeli govt could provide financial incentives to encourage population growth elsewhere in the land, I don’t know.

Mainstream, secular israelis may even be ideologically opposed to settlements but move there due to financial constraints. They want to provide for their families and often feel like they have little choice but to do what’s best in tough situations. Many israelis are poor and needy, I think about one quarter of israeli society is below the poverty line.

Within the religious settler movement, you have religious zionist and modern orthodox types who tend to be pro-peace and sympathetic to arab concerns, albeit without losing their confidence in judea and samaria.

You have a lot of orthodox and haredim who aren’t interested in political confrontation with palestinians but simply want to study torah in israel, and set up home in their ancestral homeland.

Of the orthodox nationalists, the haredi leumi, many see the conflict primarily as a spiritual battle and are thus suspicious of palestinians whom they have allegorised as an enemy nation. The extremists within the hardalim have fused together the tub-thumping rhetoric of meir kahane and his fascist kach party, underpinned by a fundamentalist interpretation of rav kook’s understanding of zionism as redemptive to israel.

Typically, they infuse this nationalism with lubavitch or bratslau hasidish spirituality, which they sometimes try to impose on others.

Violence is expressed by underground kach cells, hilltop groups, viligantes who aim to protect orthodox modesty calling themselves the “sicarii”, and anti-missionary heavies like yad l’achim. Sometimes you get lone members from these groups, who instead of fighting and provoking arabs, decide they will murder five or six arabs.

Israeli politicians routinely condemn these extremists, however they are also answerable to an electorate in which some of these groups hold great sway. At times the more extreme settlers are afforded some legitimacy by opportunistic political groups.

Israeli Messianic jews tend to be fervent religious zionists but also committed to dialogue and reconciliation with arabs, as indeed are most religious israeli jews.

This happens against a backdrop of on-off peace negotiations, mistrust of the pa, fear of hamas, uncertainty about obama, concerns about hezbollah (and thus iran)’s increasing influence in lebanon, and of course the knowledge that iran is getting ever closer to building nuclear weapons, with the intent to destroy israel, create global chaos, and usher in the kingdom of the hidden shia imam.

Not long ago Richard you claimed you had no Israel obsession.

Yeah, right.