As the political leader of Orthodox Zionism freely admits, the existence of Jewish terrorism threatens to upend all that his community has toiled to build
On Wednesday morning in Jerusalem, Naftali Bennett drew new battle lines. In a speech to Zionist Orthodox education leaders at a conference organized by Arutz 7, a mainstay news outlet of the settlement movement, the education minister addressed persistent rumors to the effect that the Shin Bet security service had been torturing suspected Jewish extremists.
The suspects, who the Shin Bet says firebombed the Palestinian Dawabsha family in their sleep last July, killing 18-month-old Ali and his parents, are “terrorists,” Bennett asserted, and their objective is to “dismantle the state.” Thus, he continued, the Israeli government has made the decision to treat them as terrorists, with all that the label entails.
“Those who, like us, support the Shin Bet’s actions on Palestinian terrorism, whose objective is to save Jewish lives, can’t oppose them when they’re applied to Jewish terrorism,” he said, acknowledging that the suspects were deprived of sleep and access to their attorneys while denying that they were tortured. “Only those who opposed the use of extreme measures toward Palestinian terrorism have the moral right to oppose the use of the same tools – or less [severe ones] – toward Jewish terrorism.”
It was a gutsy, if necessary, move for the Jewish Home party leader, one which he knew would alienate the sizable portion of his base that has been vehemently protesting in recent days — in social media and in the streets — over the Shin Bet’s alleged mistreatment of the suspects, whom it has taken to calling “the children.” The fury was sparked by allegations, floated by the suspects’ attorneys, of excruciating, medieval torments (even the spine-chilling “bed of Sodom,” which is like the rack, only worse, figured in their accounts, along with more mundane accusations of sexual abuse), and engulfed lawmakers from Bennett’s own party.
In his speech, Bennett referred ominously to “an event of extreme significance for religious Zionism and the State of Israel.” It was a “critical moment” for his people, the nationalist Orthodox, who in recent years have come to fill dominant positions in the country’s leadership. “Do we take responsibility for the State of Israel?” he challenged.
The new nationalist camp
Bennett, as he reiterated on Wednesday, sees his constituents, and particularly the community of Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria, as the vanguard of a messianic (I offer that term here without its pejorative connotations) project to rule the Land of Israel, fulfilling a divine, biblical promise. Tellingly, during a television interview on the following evening, he described himself as the leader of “the nationalist camp and religious Zionism.” In Israel, the term “nationalist camp” traditionally denotes the right as a whole; naturally, most people would consider Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu its leader.
It was a subtle dig that not only established Bennett’s ultimate political ambition, but also invoked a thesis that much of his constituency holds to be true: that Likud — certainly in its current guise — and Netanyahu are relics, doomed to make way for him and his people. More importantly, he dog-whistled, the prime minister, having conceded the inevitability of Palestinian statehood, even if in the hazy future and diluted by many caveats, isn’t truly “nationalist.” Netanyahu has departed from the sacred confluence of the State of Israel and the greater Land of Israel, from the River to the Sea.
Religious Zionism, which over the last few decades has become practically synonymous with the settlement enterprise, has been establishing itself as a dominant new elite in Israel, gaining significant influence and winning key leadership roles in the army, government and media, while maintaining a politically valuable underdog veneer. If it weren’t for the single-minded potency of Netanyahu, the thought of an Orthodox politician ascending the premiership in the next elections would be commonplace.
For a decade now, ever since the Second Intifada and the pullout from Gaza dampened hopes for peace with the Palestinians in our time, religious Zionism has been settling in the heart of an Israeli consensus that grows progressively more conservative. Meanwhile, Bennett and his party have been courting secular politicians, from the smashing success of Ayelet Shaked to the embarrassing flop that was Yinon Magal, with the intention of forming an inverted Likud of sorts, where the non-Orthodox are a young, cool minority. If it is to march onward — in a process that, according to most Zionist Orthodox leaders, must culminate with the secular state birthing a kingdom of God — the settlement enterprise cannot afford to alienate the mainstream.
Even more than the shocking attack in Duma, it was a video released Wednesday night, showing dozens of Jewish extremists reveling in the killing of the baby Ali Dawabsha during a ghoulish, stomach-churning wedding dance, that drove home the precariousness of not only Bennett’s position, but that of his entire public.
Hence the hurriedness and tenacity with which Bennett has been distancing himself from the suspected terrorists, who, he implied, were planning further attacks against Palestinian civilians; from their supporters; and from those many within his community who have been railing against the Shin Bet’s alleged treatment of them: The images in that vile wedding video, and the indictments likely to be served in the coming days, detailing past and planned atrocities and other anarchistic machinations, threaten to drive a wedge between Judea and Samaria and Israel proper. When he thundered that Jewish extremists’ ultimate objective was to “dismantle the state,” Bennett put them on a par with Palestinian terrorists, offering them up as sacrifices to the Shin Bet and a middle-of-the-road Israeli public that values security over all other political currencies.
Where does Israeli terrorism come from?
But Bennett’s condemnations weren’t meant for Israeli ears alone. In keeping with his ambition, the education minister has been supplementing his cabinet role with frequent jaunts abroad and interviews in foreign media, where his Netanyahu-esque command of English and passionate-yet-affable demeanor serve well his earnest efforts to convince the world of the justice of Israel’s open-ended presence in the West Bank. And just as with Israeli audiences, the rationale he advocates is twofold, involving both biblical birthright, ratified by mcguffins such as the ancient coin he brandished during a 2013 interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, and security.
When it comes to security, his basic thesis, like that of much of the right in Israel, is that the impetus for Palestinian terrorism is not a territorial dispute or the indignities of the military regime in the territories, but rather, exclusively, Islamism and anti-Semitic hatred. Locally, the conclusion is obvious: Any territory that Israel were to pull out of, even under a peace agreement, would be swiftly overrun by Hamas or worse, and used as a launch pad for attacks that would threaten the very existence of the ever-tenuous Jewish state. Spokespeople of Bennett’s stripe have in recent years, buoyed by phenomena such as the Islamic State group and terror attacks in the West, extended that argument further: Israel, they maintain, is a Hadrian’s Wall of sorts, a bulwark of enlightenment holding off the barbarian hordes bent on overrunning Western civilization. For Israel to cede any territory, especially along its eastern frontier, would thus risk everything the West holds dear.
While for relative pragmatists such as Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, such claims serve to relieve international pressure and defer the disconcerting prospect of a withdrawal on their watch, for Bennett and the Zionist Orthodox they are a means by which to cement the status quo as a moral necessity. If it is to keep its reputation properly burnished, Israel, settlements included, must maintain its credentials as an upstanding Western society that celebrates life even as the region is consumed by “death cults” like the Islamic State.
The existence of settler terrorists every bit as cruel and ruthless as the men laying waste to Syria and Iraq — and, perhaps even more so, images of Jewish extremists celebrating the excruciating death of an innocent baby — opens the door to troubling questions for Bennett. For example: If Israel maintains that Palestinian terrorism, even in the midst of a decades-long territorial dispute, comes from Islam, where does Israeli terrorism come from? But more pointedly, a growing number of Western observers might wonder whether, as the civilian arm of a sometimes dehumanizing 50-year military regime, a growing portion of the settler movement is losing some of its own humanity. Such a conclusion would threaten to upend everything that Bennett and his community have toiled to build.
@ LtCol Howard:
@ Ted Belman:
thanks for the compliments
Ted Belman Said:
there is no doubt that Ted is an extremely wise individual brimming with excellent judgement. 🙂
I am waiting for the GOI to arrest and drag the leaders to detention and torture with baited breath… however, I am not holding my breath while waiting.
Obviously the prison service is invested on keeping them inside which is in itself an indication that torture took place as they should simply follow court instructions. They probably want time to pass to cover their crimes.
@ LtCol Howard:
There is no doubt that Bernard is very intelligent and very knowledgeable.
I don’t think that we should write together because he is very independent and so am I. He is welcome to write something and I will be please to comment on it before he submits it to American Thinker. I hope you read my article which AT and I both published on Sunday.
I didn’t hear back from you regarding China.
Bernard Ross has a lot of very worthwhile comments. I would suggest that you (Ted Belman) and he write an article for American Thinker to give these viewpoints a wider audience.
the incident, the event…. meaning dancing Jews who hate the pal collective whose every institution, mosque and school daily incites to kill jews and destroy Israel. The pal collective is deserving of hatred… there is every reason to wish them dead….
Meanwhile, I have never seen any of the pal mobs who celbrate the murder of jewish children arrested… what about erekat who encourages terrorists?
Jews being stabbed daily and the pathetic GOI is invested in demonizing dancing Jews when instead they should be armed, formed into militias to do the work that the demonizers refuse to do.
Even if released the GOI has suceeded in distracting attention with dancing Jews, from the daily stabbings of Jews.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/police-arrest-2-revelers-caught-on-hate-wedding-video/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=abec4ae51e-2015_12_29&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-abec4ae51e-54816837
@ bernard ross:
yaamit82 is still confined to the Chisos Mountains in West Texas. He is building a retreat for ” old grumpy Jewish men”. Like the Essenes of old, they can stand on the mountain tops and hurl insults down upon the world.
Ted Belman Said:
First, I can see no facts which can be imagined to arise which are incapable of pollution and/or fabrication:
Confessions can be extracted through torture, facts that “only the perps could know” are easily put in the minds of the tortured by corrupt investigators in the torture process, DNA in the hands of shin bet from their detainees can be planted by corrupt investigators.
the very specific behaviors of the “prosecution” and the history of shin bet and the GOI towards settlers demonstrates a greater likelihood of a corrupt outcome rather than a fair trial. Everything to date is more indicative of corrupting due process as opposed to encouraging and following due process of law:
1- the highly unusual declarations of guilty jews by the 4 members of the gov is itself damning as there is no logical reason for so doing.
2- the admission of no evidence existing prior to the detention of the accused demonstrates that only the interaction of investigators with the perps produced the “evidence”. Any DNA evidence must be dismissed as having the possibility of being planted.
3- the submission of the video with the pretense of a justification for holding the detainees when no evidence is shown on the video wrt the duma arson BUT instead demonizes the collective of the detainees(guilt by association)demonstrates that the legal arms of the gov are willing to engage in employing defamation rather than evidence in this case.
4- there has been no explanation of why the gov neglected to investigate the duma arab clan feud when there already existed prior examplesl
5- there has been no explanation or rebuttal of the charge that the duma security cams were wiped clean in the first 2 days the gov chased jews.
6- Six months have elapsed which is time enough for an already proven corrupt org to manufacture and plant evidence and a narrative.
7-there has been no explanation as to why the house and another house were specifically chosen IN THE CENTER OF THE VILLAGE which is a glaring indication of a non jewish arson.
In my view it is impossible to get a fair trial as all the evidence is controlled by those who invested from the beginning in a frantic, unnecessarily EXTREME GLOBAL EFFORT to point the finger of guilt at Jews AND then submitted a video in a dishonest effort pretending to evidence. Everyone here already knows the prior exampled of gov and shin bet in prior corrupt frameups of Jews.
If I were judge I would throw out any evidence submitted that did not pass a test beyond “reasonable doubt” evidence. Considering the proven corruption and bias of the gov and prosecution each bit of evidence would have to pass the test that there could be no other POSSIBLE explanation. Any evidence which can be achieved, or explained, by assuming corruption of the investigators or prosecution would be automatic disqualification at this juncture.
Ted Belman Said:
whether Jews did it or not, whether Jewish terrorists exist or not, whether shin bet torured the Jews or not….. is irrelevant to the crimes committed by the GOI in first issuing the blood libels and second in submitting the video to distract from their criminal activity and/or negligence of libeling and doing nothing to stop the revenge stabbings they caused.
that they spoke the libels at a time when they admitted they had no evidence is a fact which stands alone to demonstrate the evidence of the criminal behavior of the 4 and the likelihood of a conspiracy to achieve an outcome unrelated to due process of law… It matters not who is guilty, they sought to obstruct due process by uttering unevidenced falsehoods which sabotaged due process….INTENTIONALLY AND CONSPIRATORIALLY.
the submission of a video which contains no evidence of a crime of arson but demonizes and defames a collective to which their detainees belong is itself a fact and evidence that they continued to seek the obstruction of due process of a fair legal process for the detainees. they arranged all the big guns of the state in this conspired, intentional defamation designed to make the detainees look guilty. Is this legal behavior for the AG and the other conspirators, in Israel?
Note, that I have not even raised the issue of who is really guilty yet or the issue of whether the detainees selected are guilty becuase that is irrelevant to the criminal, blood libeling, inciting, conspiratorial,sabotaging actions committed by the 4 and their associates in government.
the distractions and sabotage are working as none of Israel demands investigations and answers into THEIR crimes!!
Ted Belman Said:
But it appears to me that you, like most of Israel, have not considered in depth the full implications of their blood libels NOR is there any discussion as to what could motivate the 4 in unison to unnecessarily accuse Jews before a trial. Why are they so heavily invested in convincing Israel and the world that Jews did it? To me it is astounding that Israel has not called the 4 to account. You as a lawyer must realize the implications of such behavior by these 4 leaders. And instead of remorsefully apologizing for their blood libels and the revenge burnings and stabbings that their blood libels caused they embark on continuing the same MO of using defamation and libel against an entire collective in order to cover up and distract from their foul, despicable and detestable act. Their dancing Jew video is not only an example of a red herring distraction but it is also an example of an effort once again to sabotage due process of Law. Whether there exists Jewish terrorists or not is irrelevant to the duma arson. There is not one shred of evidence in the video which links the specific detainees to the specific crime … the GOI knew this when they submitted it… so what is the purpose of submitting it?????? the purpose is dishonest and even criminal in that the entire legal structure is implicated. Whether it was submitted as a red herring to distract from their blood libeling crime or to distract from their negligence in the daily stabbings OR whether it was an attempt to defame an entire collective in order to turn public opinion to hate the defendants is moot…. both of these sole purposes are dishonest and criminal and show that the AG and the criminal justice system is invested in the same deception.
The major crime is not the baby burning or the torture but the investment of the entire legal structure of the GOI into the blood libels and the red herring video demonstrating a conspiracy and abuse of power and authority.
It cannot be argued that they did not know their blood libels would incite the revenge burnings and stabbings, it cannot be argued that they did not know that the video contained no evidence implicating the detainees in the arson, they cannot argue that they did not intentionally seek to defame settlers in order to influence the proceedings of any indictment or trial, it cannot be argued that they are all unaware that libels against Jews were serially used by the church and Hitler to first get everyone to hate the Jews and then the Jews could be murdered with little opposition. In my view the 4 have, and continue to, use time worn methods KNOWINGLY and INTENTIONALLY to first defame and then to lynch.
1-why did the 4 blood libel?
2-why did they issue an irrelevant video to what purpose?
3-why did they circumvent, sabotage and obstruct the due process of law?
4-why ISN’T Israel calling for their resignations, their arrest for inciting libel, their indictment as accessories to the murder of revenge burned Jews, their obvious efforts to circumvent due process which is also the crime of abuse of their authority?
I write long on this as these are serious crimes and every lawyer must realize that there is NO possibility of unpolluted evidence.
Right from the start I was against citing the perpetrators as Jewish extremists. This to me was a blood libel.bernard ross Said:
I agree.
And that cuts both ways. No one should declare that Jews didn’t. We must wait the facts.Innocent til proven guilty.
@ Bernard Ross….Thank you for your comments.
geobbels, and his method of establishing truth, is alive and well in the top leadership of israel. They keep doubling down on their original wager that fool Jews will buy their story.
I keep asking folks here and wonder why no one in Israel asks the simple question:
Why did Yaalon, BB, Erdan and Rivlin declare to the world that jews murdered a baby in duma instead of advising calm, and to wait for the legal process to be observed, as most national leaders would do? They had to have known that Jews would be burned and stabbed in revenge as a result of their declarations. Why didn’t they wait for the Law to determine guilt before inciting murder?
Perhaps the demonization of settlers is what they want. Perhaps the “tough love” of fear generated by the stabbings is what they want. After all Livni and the left have advised the world to give “tough love” to Israel. Perhaps the stabbings are a deeper level of “tough love”. We know that the left has incited the murder of settlers already and the GOI gives them free reign to do so. Perhaps the hatred of settlers and the fatigue of being stabbed daily with the GOI doing nothing is what will move Israel to a deal with the pals.