Settler Violence Is Called A Contradiction To “Jewish Values”

The Washington Post (July 8, 2023) reported that, “The recent spate of settler attacks on Palestinian villages in the West Bank is deepening fissures in Israel’s right-wing government, with hardline ministers pushing back on calls by military and security chiefs for a crackdown on Jewish extremists.”

“These attacks contradict every moral and Jewish value,” read a rare joint statement by Herzi Halevi, chief of staff for the Israel Defense Forces; Ronen Bar, director of the Israel Security Agency; and Yaakov Shabtai, the national police commission-er. “they constitute, in every way, nationalist terrorism, and we are obliged to fight them.”

According to the Post, “The public feud highlights the potential instability of Netanyahu’s government, a coalition that owes its four-seat parliamentary majority to far-right nationalist parties…In March, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler leader who leads the Religious Zionist Party…defended a settler rampage through the West Bank town of Huwara, an attack characterized by an Israeli general as an attempted ‘pogrom.’ Smotrich said Israel should ‘wipe out’ the community. Smotrich gained additional authority last month when the cabinet voted to give him control of the Defense Ministry’s West Bank civil affairs division, in charge of settlement planning and construction.”

Human rights monitors accused the Israeli military of standing by during some of the settler attacks on Palestinian civilians. According to the Post, “Amid the violence, Netanyahu angered governments in Washington and Europe by announcing the approval of 1,000 new housing units in Eli, which would double the size of the settlement….The State Department said it was ‘deeply troubled’ by the move as an impediment to peace.’”

In his Sabbath message to Tzedek Chicago Congregation (July 8, 2023), Rabbi Brant Rosen declared: “Make no mistake: Israel’s assault on Jenin is about the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in service of widespread Jewish settlement. We are witnessing nothing short of an ongoing Nakba—-the continuation of a story that began 75 years ago and shows no signs of stopping. We are witnessing the logical consequences of a colonial movement that seeks to establish a state on the backs of an-other people. If there is anything new it is that Israel has government leaders who are willing to say as much out loud when will we take them at their word?”

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (July 12, 2023) warns that the Biden administration is reassessing its ties with the Netanyahu government amid growing American alarm over the actions of the far-right coalition. In Friedman’s view, the Israeli government is using the judicial overhaul push as a smokescreen “to engage in unprecedented radical behavior that is undermining our shared interests…and the shared fiction about the status of the West Bank that has kept peace hopes there just barely alive.” Friedman says there has been “a breakdown in shared values between the U.S. and Israel.” Israeli leaders cavalierly dismissing U.S. officials who criticize the growing extremism are, Friedman argues, showing that the idea of “shared values” may indeed be a myth. He describes Israeli policy in the West Bank as “some sort of apartheid.”

Prior to the visit to Washington on July 18 of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Rep. Pamila Jayapal (D-WA) said that Israel “is a racist state.” She walked back this comment after criticism from House Democratic leaders. But she declared, “I do not believe the idea of Israel as a nation is racist,” but added that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “extreme right-wing government has engaged in discriminatory and outright racist policies.” A number of progressive Democrats boycotted the Israeli President’s address to Congress, as did Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. On July 18, the House overwhelmingly passed a resolution pledging unfailing support for Israel and declaring that the country is neither racist nor an apartheid state. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) challenged Democrats to punish critics of Israel.

A report issued in July by Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, to the Human Rights Council, declared: “Israeli military occupation has morphed the entire occupied Palestinian territory into an open-air prison, where Palestinians are constantly confined, surveilled and disciplined.” **