By Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen, BESA July 5, 2021
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,088, July 5, 2021
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The establishment of the Evyatar outpost is a direct continuation of the activist pioneering ethos that the Yishuv leadership developed during the Arab riots of 1936-39, and that has long been lost to considerable parts of the Israeli political establishment.
The Evyatar outpost was set up in the midst of the recent war in Gaza. Located on a hill overlooking Highway 5—the Trans-Samaria Highway— from the north, it has a vital security importance. In the past, a military base on that hill enabled the seizure of weapons and terror operatives in the area.
The highway is a main corridor between greater Tel Aviv and the Jordan Valley. During the Oslo process, PM Yitzhak Rabin, in demarcating Area C, identified the corridors crossing the West Bank from west to east as vital to Israel. In his view, keeping the Highway 5 corridor under Israeli control was a necessary condition for controlling the Jordan Valley. When the Trump plan was issued, the struggle over control of the highway intensified, including the Palestinian occupation of the ancient Hasmonean fortress of Tel Aroma.
The timing of Evyatar’s establishment must be understood in a wider context that includes the Arab rioting in Israeli cities during the latest Gaza war. During the 1936-39 riots, the Yishuv leadership realized that alongside defense and security efforts, it was crucial to take a proactive approach. Amid the tension that emerged between adopting a proactive mode of struggle and the moral restriction on revenge attacks on Arabs, David Ben-Gurion chose to expand the settlement enterprise as a form of activist Zionism. In that regard, the creation of Evyatar is part of the pioneering approach taken during the founding of the modern State of Israel.
In the face of this pioneering initiative, the state authorities, led by the defense establishment, are focusing their attention on the technical violations involved in building this community without the necessary documentation.
Circumstances that can justify taking the law into one’s own hands, if they in fact exist, require a moral-philosophical discussion beyond the purely legal. Even a country like Britain, with its age-old legacy of the rule of law, was able to recognize the special conditions under which taking the law into one’s own hands can be justified and expedient as a circumstantial necessity.
The Zionist enterprise has had to deal with this tension for more than a century. The basic problem concerns the ongoing struggle in the Land of Israel over the control of territory. As Zionist activist Manya Shohat, in her letter to Henrietta Szold in March 1909, described it:
[In] Palestine the land must not remain untended. When an Arab sees that no one is working the land, he settles on it, and from the moment he has eaten bread from that land he will not leave it. Then he has to be expelled by force, and the trials begin…. This, in turn, creates hatred between Arabs and Jews. Because the land cannot be left untended, it has to be leased to an Arab, and then the story that I described repeats itself…. The Arabs do not leave the land that was leased to them and the outcome is agrarian riots, trials, prison.
More than a century later, little has changed. What has changed—for the worse—is the degree to which many of Israel’s leaders and jurists are aware of and sympathize with the difficulties of the pioneering struggle in the frontier areas. The complex dynamic of the struggle over territory in the Land of Israel continues to require approaches stemming from a sense of emergency. It is in light of the emergency conditions in which this struggle is still being waged that acts regarded from a formal legal standpoint as “taking the law into one’s own hands” should be judged.
In the old days, the leaders of the labor movement understood the interrelationship between the institutional leadership and the pioneering groups who faithfully carried out the settlement enterprise. In the summer of 1967, cabinet minister Yisrael Galili visited Kibbutz Merom Golan, and when the residents asked for a promise that from the Israeli government’s standpoint they were there to stay, he replied, “You people [should] promise that you will fight any Israeli government that tries to uproot you.” That should be the basic principle for managing the tension between a state and its pioneers—a principle that considerable parts of the Israeli political establishment appear to have forgotten.
This is an edited version of an article published in Israel Hayom on July 2, 2021.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen is a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He served in the IDF for 42 years. He commanded troops in battles with Egypt and Syria. He was formerly a corps commander and commander of the IDF Military Colleges.
@peloni
I wasn’t trying to diminish my words but I cannot control the way you choose to understand them or, rather, not understand them.
I am done with this topic.
@Reader
If you did not intend to reference the arrest of anyone, what was the reference to the security services regarding? Did you mean to have them just threaten him, which would amount to a retelling of all my statements, that I will simply reference. I do not mean to be too severe or create something to hang a ranting upon as you previously suggested, but your words carry a context that, as I stated many times now, is quite dangerous and, hence, my rants. So while I did not mean to be too severe, I believe a serious discussion was more warranted than I felt comfortable ignoring. And your accusations of my self-righteousness is likely a misinterpretation by you of my stark horror that you really meant to not withdraw or explain your reckless statements, and it is not self-righteous to point out an error or concern such as your words presented to me.
And before you try to diminish your words, here they are.
As I stated in my ‘rants’ there were other concerns about your statements that I found unpleasant and worthy of mention, but I strictly focused upon these points as you never divulged that they spoke your meaning or were written in error, as it happens to us all.
So we seem to keep dancing about this point with you casting insults and denying words I have quoted and I asking questions and making valid arguments against your statements, and if you prefer the word accusation, I will not argue upon this nuance.
Do you really support these statements? It is a fair question, even if you will not speak to it, the answer will be plainly made.
And to respond to your words about playing political games, how would any move that Bennett or Saar or Lieberman or Gantz be described differently than playing political games.
Bennett and Saar are planning on passing a bill to eliminate Bibi from running for office again(I might have missed it so maybe it is already done), how is this not “personal political games aimed at defeating their political opponents” – it is exactly this.
Too often people form attachments to politicians with bonds of love, or hate, or admiration or fear.
It is why each of us will overlook the ills of one actor doing very similar things to what we find despicable in another.
So yes, sorry to betray the innocence of any here, but politicians play political games and their goals are sometimes obvious and sometimes not, but none of them, not the worst of them, are worthy of the threats your words conveyed when I read them.
So respond if you like, but I think your hesitancy to make your inference certain, reveals your intent as presumed.
@Edgar
“Transmute” means turn into something else.
I never called for arresting anyone’s political foes.
I am amazed that there are people who think that politicians should be entitled to destroy their country while playing their personal political games aimed at defeating their political opponents just because their political system is called a democracy.
Edgar G @ Reader
Apologies but I must again “butt-in”….I read the same posts of yours in which you advocated or “at least” deeply mulled over” the action of arresting political foes whose actions you believe would damage the country. You kept “doubling down”.
Unless you didn’t mean what it showed you meant, as you say. But what you seem to advocate is more in the line of banana republics, CCP, Nth. Korea, Iran, Turkey,Syria and more.
I suggest that “transmute” is not the word you need to use, but “re-interpret” or simply “change my meaning”….since you’re no alchemist a la Harrison Ainsworth, ….. and stone definitely cannot be changed into gold.
And you ignore the fact that politicians of all parties are like the mythical hydra.
Bennett is a prime example. Netanhayu xannot be used as an example, because no one but he, knows what his real intentions are.
@perloni
I don’t think you have any abstract reasoning ability.
You keep transmuting my general statements and questions into personal attacks on Netanyahu and opposition.
This sort of situation can happen in any country, not just in Israel.
And, stupid me, I thought that severely undermining your country’s security is a crime.
Apparently, it is not.
@Reader
I understand you are done with this topic, but if you are of a mind to explain yourself better, tell me where I “attribut[ed] to me things that I’ve never said”. If I have misjudge your intent, it would only be the product of it being poorly written or poorly read, as I have no desire to construct staw-men on any topic, much less upon the uncomfortable topics that you raised. Indeed, your initiating premise of arresting the a disagreeable Opposition leadership as “This is what every country has security services for” and later mutated this conjecture into the Opposition being labeled as an “oligarchy or dictatorship” within the state. If you did not mean these statements as written, I would be glad to hear it, but, in all fairness, if any straw-men were built here, it was not by my statements, but your own.
@peloni
Quit attributing to me things that I’ve never said or thought and then getting horrified at their awfulness, i.e., building straw-men and then fighting them in a fit of self righteousness.
I am through talking about this.
@Reader
Your continued support of the violent undertaking you espouse is too reckless to leave without response, though I will only speak to one of your threads, but if you like we may pursue all three.
There is, in fact, nothing to ponder when considering your advocacy in the force of arms to prove your point. Indeed, in the defense of any nation, the use of force is often necessary, but not from within the Knessett. You ask the following question:
The honest answer is: It is neither. It is a democracy and you and your security services have no role hear but to overthrow the nation to save it from your perceived harm.
Your notion is predicated with a built-in arrogance which fears the democratic principles of the gov’t, and in turn this fear would drive you wildly towards a tyrannical control, the very oligarchy/dictatorship you premise as your motives for this violent sedition.
You would save it from this moment of distress thinking it’s potential of destruction is too concerning to bear, but forcing the will of you and your Praetorian Guards as supreme would change this perception of a potential harm into a completed act.
Hence, having saved the nation from these ‘dangerous’ democratically elected representatives, who would next save it from the dangers of you and your authoritarian marshals, whose only foundation of legitimacy would be the violence of your arms in defeating the arguments of easily better men.
Each of us have a perspective upon events and none of us will agree upon each detail, and yet each detail carries within it these dangers and consequences upon the state.
So whose majority should we find sensible enough to judge each of these details, yours or just whoever happens to carry the greater arms or more violent tendencies?
Indeed, it would seem that trusting the public’s sometimes fickle choice of elites would create a better sampling of rulers than the ruling elites chosen by your force of arms, as the former have a limit upon their authority and rule and the later hold no limits beyond the extent of the Junta’s armory.
Furthermore, Israel’s history of rule by military generals(Rabin, Sharon and Barak all spring to mind) portrays a shabby record of accomplishment, but if it is not to be a democracy, the only opinions to be counted will be those carrying the greater arms rather than the greater ideas.
I thought the folly of your reckless rhetoric should be easily enough discerned as such to each of us, but then again “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction” and sometimes tyranny stands much less distant than this.
Though democracy can be manipulated and the chaos between the swings in the public’s choice can create upsetting and destabilizing results, these are the very motivating forces that will lead the electorate to a better understanding of their choices.
And if the nation’s fate is to be the result of the destruction from a folly of quarrels, your use of violent overthrow will only serve to quicken its demise.
Feel free of any need in responding to this. As you seem fixed upon the righteousness of your violent solutions, I will only restate that you have no concept of the harm your imprudent views can carry, or you would surely never espouse them with the wanton negligence that you do.
So your answer is YES, the “representatives of the people” no matter how damaging to the security of their country their behavior may be (including supplying classified information to that country’s mortal enemy) may only be removed through the democratic elections.
I would like to mention something, though:
1) When you have a few politicians who are capable of doing this sort of thing in a democracy – can this reasonably be called a democracy? Or is this more of an oligarchy or a dictatorship? (I am not asking you to respond to this).
2) by the time the next election rolls around again, the amount of damage done maybe irreversible.
3) if the political system of the country is in such shape – what if the “next election” never happens again?
This is just something for you to ponder, these are not my questions for you to answer.
@Reader
The gov’t is base upon the democratic principles under a parliamentary system of gov’t. With this in mind, the opposition has the right to oppose any or all measures put forth by the gov’t as the chosen representative of the public’s choice. Regarding your question, I believe that politicians, in general, too regularly prove unworthy of the burden of being a faithful steward of this responsibility based on some perspective. Too commonly, they will, in general, be seen to conduct political maneuvers with known or unseen consequences, for whatever motives, which may or not endanger and/or damage the country – the history of any democratic society is filled with a plethora of examples of such things. And yet, the very basis of a republic requires that the public allocates their trust of representation into the hands of these representatives. Should these representatives prove unworthy of the task, well this can be amended in the next election, not by the security services.
Your suggestion does not just undermine these principles, it betrays them utterly in suggesting that you or anyone else would have the temerity and display a reckless ambition of presuming your judgement as being more prescient than the public’s chosen representative, and by innuendo, the public as well. This seditious policy you suggest is the path towards by which democracy gives way to authoritarianism. Stated differently, you suggest a coup against the opposition to have your own judgement made certain and an end of democracy – it can be stated no more simple than this. Indeed, I can not believe you are not aware of every word I have stated here. Do you really not comprehend the enormity of what you suggest is to gain you a momentary victory at the cost of every democratic norm the nation was built upon? If this were to be accepted practice, Bibi could have simply arrested all the Arabs and Bennett and Saar and, there would be no issue of this Citizenship law passing in the resulting Rump Knessett.
@peloni
I never said or suggested the things that you claim I did.
You haven’t answered my question.
To make it even simpler for you – is causing ANY damage to the country by the politicians in order to bring down their political enemies justified in your eyes in the name of democracy?
YES OR NO?
If you answer is NO, please, offer a (short) suggestion on how YOU would deal (WITHOUT involvement of the security services) with a politician who is about to severely damage his country’s security in order to destroy his political enemies.
@Reader
Nothing you have just hypothesized with your wild imaginations has any basis or suggestion in this world beyond a reverie of your own making. Perhaps you will next presume to convict him of the Kennedy assassination, as well? Bibi Netanyahu is not smuggling anything to the Iranians and your suggestion otherwise is scandalous hyperbole which reveals more about you than anything else in this reality. Likely it is an extension of the irrational Bibiphobia(excellent term coined by Edgar G.) that has been hyped by the Left and adopted by many on the Right and of which you seem to receive a regular dosing.
Furthermore, your suggestion that the security services be employed to silence any contrary voice to the gov’t is more dangerous than delusional. I do not believe I need to describe the folly of this suggestion further.
@peloni
So you agree that if Netanyahu decided to supply Iran with some classified information thinking that it would help him bring down the coalition, it would be the right thing for him to do in the name of democracy?
To quote Bob Dylan,
@ EDGAR
Allow me to amplify my last few words that I was enjoying the circular nonsenses. I am now laughing whilst reading, -from the top several posts.. What comes to mind is from the Hippy Days…
Except for ONE very pithy and accurate post…
“CRAZY MAN …CRAZY…..C-R=A-Z-Y…..!!!.
@Bear
Well enough Bear, but the way you describe it, as a partisan showdown, is completely contradicted by Dichter’s description of things. But I do thank you for your thoughts. We do disagree to a point, but I have enjoyed our discussion, for my part.
@Reader
How very proleterian of you to suggest, Reader. Actually, this is probably the most stupid thing I have ever heard…Not that I am saying you are stupid, no, I am not saying it. However, your rash words do denote a complete ignorance of what you advocate. I mean, is this your concept of democracy, or are you just an unrequited radical looking to relieve the anxiety in your mind that Bibi might soon be back? Tell you what, take a Xanex and let’s skip the revolution instead.
You would arrest the opposition leader because the leadership is too incompetent to succeed without him in a Knessett vote? Really? It does call to mind Shakespeare’s Richard III, but what of it….Why not arrest the whole Opposition, as they supported him? Why not also ferret out his supporters in every city, town and village, for they will likely vote for him again? The stupidity and radical move you advocate would be better replaced with thinking why you are so afraid of him, what is it that causes so much fear, that this one man’s arrest by the security services, no less, would bestow such a great relief upon your psyche.
In all seriousness, your foolish advocacy for such failed state practices would bring ruin upon the state, so if this is not your goal, you would be wise to think of another method to defeat your adversary, as you are likely to have more than one Bibi frustrate you, and, who knows, it might be necessary to have the entire security service busy making sure that this Bibi in kept in his cell.
@Peloni I think your facts are plain and simply not even the least correct. Partisan objection trying to bring the government down was the reason. Some of the Likud members had wanted to renew the old bill because it was in the countries best interest.
I am going to stop debating this at this point because no further point in hashing it out. We are simply are not going to agree on this item.
“TREASON” might be too strong a term for this specific situation but no sane state will allow some politicians to destroy the country.
This is what every country has security services for.
What if Netanyahu decided that in order to faster and more thoroughly destroy the coalition, he must give certain classified information to Iran?
Should the security services just sit there with their mouths open and admire his adroit maneuvers, or should they try and actually save the country?
@Bear
Let me explain why this is not so. The basis of the objection by the Likud on the renewal of the old bill is that they will not allow the latitude of Arab emigration be due to the Interior Ministers judgement. But they are in the Opposition, so the gov’t can do what it likes to the limits of its members agreement. And yet, the recent vote displayed that this gov’t as it sits is incapable of concluding this measure without them. Still, knowing this, Shaked entreated members of Likud to join or amend the bargain struck with Abbas – so, unless the target of this negotiation was Tibi, this was, from the outset, too wide a breach to have any hope of a successful settlement and Bennett knew this.
Yet, Bennett went thru the motions to force Likud in voting down the bill, presumably to gain a victory, but only resulted in displaying his own political weakness, and though I can’t believe he didn’t see this coming, he did it anyway. How did this help the state or him? There can now be no doubt or discussion of the crisis before this gov’t’s inabilities and this will harden egos and make the Right and Bennett each more intractable and less willing to a fair settlement – which should be the object of the PM’s every move.
So, either Bennett’s focus is upon grand standing for political benefit or his focus is upon doing the difficult work of gov’t and passing a bill to limit the Arab emigration. The faux negotiation and doomed vote were each demonstrations of grand standing by a recently named PM who needed to show the nation and the world that his coalition of Left-Right-Meretz-Raam members could handle the issues of state, or failing this, that they can work around the pot-holes in his alliances – and Bennett did none of this.
This vote demonstrated many things, among them was that Bennett chose to work with Abbas over Likud to pass the bill. He did so knowing that accepting that he would have to pay Abbas with extra Arabs in the state – cancelling Jewish votes in future elections only to gain this temporary ally on this one single vote – not the best bargain.
This demonstration of his desperation or hopes or however you might characterize this action was the point that Bennett lost all hope of gaining any ally from Likud – none would dare be tied to bribing Abbas with thousands of Arabs as Bennett has tied himself, and now with nothing to show for his efforts. Likud sees this gift of thousands of added Arabs to the Brotherhood as toxic.
But worse, it clearly demonstrated everything that Rotman stated about leaving Bennett with the latitude allowed these past many gov’ts, as none of them gave Arab votes to the Brotherhood for a support upon a single point of legislation. Hence it is from this point which negotiations, if they are sincere and hopeful of success, must begin – if Bennett seeks to pass a law limiting Arab emigration, he will have to accept the fact that he will have to cede the authority from the Interior Ministry of fluctuating the Arab emigration.
Perhaps this is already under way, I hope so, as this matter is serious for many reasons. So, these are how I see things, unfortunately. Still, I believe I can trust if you see my logic in error, you will share it with me.
Full article at https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-cost-of-israels-partisan-games-on-security/
@ EVERYONE. The many good class minds on this topic seem to have -most of them- “gone off the rails’. They find they are able to peer into a thick cloud of mist and read therein, what should, could, and must be done to “save” Israel, ….(from Netanyyahu’s egomania”??)
And of course, topping the list of irrelevancy, is a fatuous suggestion that Netanyahu, a devoted, realistic 4 dimensional Zionist, could be guilty of TREASON, for voting against the new govt, proposal to renew the Citizenship Law….finishing past the post with the expected, unnamed, anonymous “SOME PEOPLE have been questioning his sanity..”…
I may have mentioned this before, but a comparison with the hamster running around the endless circular wheel, comes to mind.
I enjoy reading every word.