Wednesday, June 30, 2004
The Wall and Fundamentalist Judaism
News today from Israel that the Supreme Court has ordered the route of the barrier wall between Israel and the West Bank be redrawn to minimize harm to Palestinian communities. The High Court ruled that:
"The route disrupts the delicate balance between the obligation of the military commander to preserve security and his obligation to provide for the needs of the local inhabitants.
"The route ... injures the local inhabitants in a severe and acute way while violating their rights under humanitarian and international law."
Although the case was brought on behalf of a specific Palestinian community, the ruling was written broadly enough to support efforts of many villages seeking to alter the course of the barrier wall, which in many places cuts deep into pre-1967 arab territory.
The decision, as well as Sharon's proposed pull-out of Gaza was decried by hard right Israelis. One such Rabbi, Avigdor Neventzal, went so far as to say that "anyone who turns over Israeli land could be subject to Din Rodef - a licence to kill a fellow Jew."
This is the real stumbling block that Sharon must overcome--the genuine possibility of Israeli Civil War if any such pullout is ever codified into law let alone undertaken without the consent of the settlers. Likud and other right-wing Israeli parties spent years building up and feeding off of the suffering and messianic zeal of hardcore settlers. Entrenched settlers, far more than any other bloc in Israel, view any pullout from any occupied territory as treason, and increasingly, as blasphemy apparently punishable by death.
I fear that the genuine threat against Israel will ultimately come from within, not without. Come to think of it, I have the same fears about the US of A.
News today from Israel that the Supreme Court has ordered the route of the barrier wall between Israel and the West Bank be redrawn to minimize harm to Palestinian communities. The High Court ruled that:
"The route disrupts the delicate balance between the obligation of the military commander to preserve security and his obligation to provide for the needs of the local inhabitants.
"The route ... injures the local inhabitants in a severe and acute way while violating their rights under humanitarian and international law."
Although the case was brought on behalf of a specific Palestinian community, the ruling was written broadly enough to support efforts of many villages seeking to alter the course of the barrier wall, which in many places cuts deep into pre-1967 arab territory.
The decision, as well as Sharon's proposed pull-out of Gaza was decried by hard right Israelis. One such Rabbi, Avigdor Neventzal, went so far as to say that "anyone who turns over Israeli land could be subject to Din Rodef - a licence to kill a fellow Jew."
This is the real stumbling block that Sharon must overcome--the genuine possibility of Israeli Civil War if any such pullout is ever codified into law let alone undertaken without the consent of the settlers. Likud and other right-wing Israeli parties spent years building up and feeding off of the suffering and messianic zeal of hardcore settlers. Entrenched settlers, far more than any other bloc in Israel, view any pullout from any occupied territory as treason, and increasingly, as blasphemy apparently punishable by death.
I fear that the genuine threat against Israel will ultimately come from within, not without. Come to think of it, I have the same fears about the US of A.
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