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Uprooting Jews

Settler demonization gains momentum


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
July 08, 2004

Members of the Sharon government and leftist Israeli media have accelerated efforts to demonize the right-wing settler movement ahead of the prime minister’s plan to forcibly uproot the Jews of Gaza.

Recent news reports abound with allegations that persons associated with that sector of society are planning to assassinate Sharon and start a civil war.

Right-wing commentators responded to the accusations by noting there was not a shred of evidence supporting the notion of violent extremism, and said the settlers were being unfairly indicted for trying to defend their homes and the right of Jews to live where they choose.

That assessment was backed up by unnamed security sources.

The smear campaign was seen by observers as another step in the government’s preparations to unilaterally and in possible contravention of international law evacuate the Gaza Jewish community.

Portraying the settlers as a potential threat to national security would increase the government’s ability to shift public opinion against the settlement enterprise and lay the necessary groundwork for a full-scale withdrawal.

Politicians and religious leaders said that by using such tactics, it was Sharon who was further tearing the fabric of Israeli society and inching the nation towards conflagration.

Demonizing the Right

During Sunday’s cabinet meeting, General Security Services (Shin Bet) director Avi Dichter told ministers that right-wing “extremism” was on the rise as a result of Sharon’s plan to uproot the Jews of Gaza.

A day later, Internal Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi added fuel to the fire, telling Channel 2 News, “I have no doubt that there are people who have already decided that they will 'save the people of Israel' and will assassinate a minister, the prime minister, an army officer or a police officer. I have no doubt. This is now with us.”

Army Radio on Wednesday quoted unnamed security sources as saying Dichter and Hanegbi had no actual evidence to back up their accusations.

Both men later confirmed their assessments and subsequent indictment of the religious right were based on nothing more than a “gut feeling.”

The Council of Rabbis of Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip (Yesha) labeled Dichter’s report to the cabinet as “incitement and provocation to hatred against an entire public.”

Sharon himself took the matter beyond political assassination, telling a gathering of the Anti-Defamation League Tuesday that the charged atmosphere over his Gaza retreat plan gave him the feeling Israel was sliding towards a civil war.

During a meeting with Shinui Knesset faction later that same day, Sharon called on Justice Minister Yosef Lapid to take "energetic action to put an end to dangerous incitement" from the right.

Misreading the polls

Sharon said that despite the purported threats, he had overwhelming public support to quit Gaza, and intended to do just that.

But the results of a survey released Wednesday by the Israel Institute for Public Policy indicated the prime minister was off on his reading of the general public will.

According to the results of that poll, less than 50 percent of Israelis support his Gaza pullout plan, while 51 percent either oppose it or are undecided on the issue.

A full 61 percent believe withdrawing from the Strip would increase the ability of “Palestinian” terrorists based there to perpetuate their campaign to exterminate the Jews of Israel.

Familiar tactic

The debate over possible public violence in response to Sharon’s plan hit a high note last week when Jerusalem Old City rabbi Avigdor Neventzal said that forcibly evacuating residents and relinquishing parts of the land of Israel threatened the lives and well-being of Jews.

According to Jewish religious law, it is permissible to preemptively kill someone who threatens the lives of others.

Neventzal clarified that in the case of Sharon’s pullout plan, this concept did not give anyone the right to physically harm the prime minister or any other official.

Nevertheless, left-wing political elements and Israel’s mainstream media used Neventzal’s words to demand judicial action aimed as silencing the opponents of unilateral retreat.

In typical fashion, Labor and other leftist Knesset members recalled the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, and accused the Right of planning to do the same to Sharon.

Just as they have ever since Rabin’s death, these politicians asserted that it was the religious right wing’s freedom to publicly express itself that leads to the possibility of political assassination and public violence.

But following Rabin’s assassination, it was revealed that a planted Shin Bet agent worked to inflame right-wing sentiments to the point of extremism, and was aided in doing so by an unrelenting leftist media campaign.

That demonization process resulted in an atmosphere where for years right-wing figures could not express controversial opinions without being accused of incitement.

‘Sharon is the danger’

National Union MK and Gaza settler Tzvi Hendel Wednesday said that rather than the religious right, it was Sharon who was inching the nation closer to civil war by threatening the lives of Jews who refused to leave their homes.

He noted that during the recent removals of several “illegal” outposts in Judea and Samaria, army snipers were deployed for the purpose of ensuring the settlers did not go too far in resisting evacuation.

"I'm afraid that with a prime minister so undemocratic, he could order a civil war," Hendel told the National Union faction. "We have to do everything possible to prevent Sharon from bringing a civil war on the people of Israel."

Other right-wing settler voices concurred that it was the Sharon government that was raising the prospect of civil war, saying that they would not be the first to open fire, but that if security forces used lethal force against them, the settlers would fight back.

Reports Wednesday indicated the IDF Home Front Command could be ordered to confiscate settlers’ weapons prior to the Gaza evacuation.

Tearing apart Israeli society

Rabbi Daniel Shilo, chairman of the Council of Rabbis of Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, called out Dichter on Wednesday, questioning why the Shin Bet chief would further divide Israeli society by making unsubstantiated accusations.

"If he cannot do [more] he must stop spreading rumors, because then he too finds himself bordering on incitement and causing a schism between different sections of the nation," Shilo told The Jerusalem Post .

Hendel said if Dichter has specific evidence against an individual or group, he should take action against them, and stop indicting an entire sector of society.

Illegal evacuation

Meanwhile, the Professors for a Safe Israel organization wrote a letter to Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz Tuesday arguing that the entire premise of Sharon’s “disengagement” plan was not only unethical, but also illegal under international law.

"Forcibly uprooting people from their homes against their will only because of their ethnic or religious background - and even if they are Jews being uprooted by a Jewish government - is against the law,” the group wrote.

“An order to conduct such an evacuation is blatantly illegal, with a black flag over it, an order that must be forbidden to give and forbidden to obey.”

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