Hareidim More Zionist than Leftists, Poll Shows

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, INN

Self-described hareidi religious Jews are more Zionist than leftist, and despite mainstream media headlines, trust in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the government is far higher than during the Olmert-Livni administration, according to a new poll.

The survey also shows that leftist and middle-to-upper class people are more involved in “social protests” tha? those who are relatively poorer.

One-third of those defining themselves as leftists told the Israeli Democracy’s Democracy Index poll that they are not Zionists or are “not so strong” as Zionists, while 62 percent of the hareidi religious community said they are “strongly Zionist” or are “quite Zionistic.”

The leading sector that described itself as strongly or quite Zionistic was that part of the hareidi religious community that also defines itself as nationalist, with 62 percent in the Zionist category, followed by the religious, traditional and secular sectors.

Another surprising figure was that nearly half – 44 percent – of Arabs with Israeli citizenship are “proud” to be Israelis, although nearly 50 percent are not. The figure of “proud” Israeli Arabs is in contrast to an increasing number of terrorists among the Israeli Arabs. The figures suggest that while the Arab community is split considering its identity with Israel, there is a deep anti-Israeli anger among a small but lethal minority among those who are not “proud” Israelis.

The poll also contradicts images in mainstream media that the public does not trust the government and Prime Minister Netanyahu, and actually shows a far higher trust than during the period of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

In 2008, only 16.8 percent of the public trusted Olmert, who at the time was under several investigations for alleged bribery and abusing the public trust, and only 25.1 percent trusted his government.

The respective figures have been on a steady rise, and the latest poll shows that slightly more than 56 percent of the respondents trust Netanyahu and his government, far higher than in the first three years after the Likud formed the present government.

In its survey of those participating in the movement of social protests, the IDD found that only 16.5 percent of the respondents with lower than average income participated in the demonstrations, while 40 percent of those with higher than average salaries participated.

As expected, most of the protesters were leftists.

Concerning the Palestinian Authority, the poll confirmed frustration among media and politicians that the “Peace Process” is dead and buried. Only 22.5 percent of Jews in the poll believe there will be an agreement with the Palestinian Authority in the next few years.

September 6, 2012 | 50 Comments »

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  1. “Indeed you don’t so understand.”

    Help me understand, Dweller. Really. I really do think the line in the sand has been brushed over so much that some people have lost sight of it. Remember the angel asking, “Are you friend or foe?” What do you think constitutes a “foe” of Israel, Dweller? Do you believe there can be such a thing as “Christian Zionism”? My point has always been that the so-called “Christian Zionist” is always dictating (as does Curio) what should be Israel’s policies as regards her enemies. I think that’s a bit excoriative.

    “(But then, you’ve got a truckload of anger in you, just bursting to break out at any moment.)”

    Not true. I’m actually a nice guy, very patient. But I give no quarter to those whom I perceive as enemies (especially the insidious ones) of the Jews and Israel. Wouldn’t the above statement be borderline Lashon Hara? I really don’t understand why you would want to embarrass me publicly if, after all, you are concerned about the danger of “bearing false witness against my neighbor.” You seem to show more respect for Curious American (who casts doubts about Israel and the Jews) than you do for me, someone who has defended the Jews and Israel for most of my adult life. You talk to me like I’m a child but you rush to flatter Curio. Curio sounds to me like he’s angry with the Jews and the State of Israel. I feel like you are publicly mocking me, and for what? For defending the Jews?

    I was told today that one of my posts was censored because I deemed Christianity as less than vomit. Since when do I have to worry about what I say about another religion, especially one that has detracted and obstructed so many non-Jews from the truth about the Jewish people and their G-D (the only G-D)? You tell me you’re Jewish, Dweller, that it’s ok for you to embarrass me in public (that I am a “truckload of anger…) but I should avoid being too quick to accuse someone of being antisemitic who is unashamed to make all sorts of accustions against the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

    “If you’ve been put down that way in the past, Old Boy…”

    Old Boy??? There you go embarrassing me again in public. As though I am as unrefined and broken as an orphan and oaf, (but Heaven forbid I should be rude to those non-Jews who have also publicly denigrated me!). Although I hadn’t thought long and hard about your previous statements already, Dweller, I do know for certain that I do not deserve to be publicly diminished as you have done above.

    I don’t belong here. Blogs don’t work for me because of ambiguous personalities and undistinguishable borders. So no, I SO don’t understand, Dweller. Diminishing my person publicly is not “witticism” but rather very cruel, especially when it comes from someone to whom I have done nothing but shown respect. I SO don’t understand. You and Curio are in a league of your own, Dweller. I’m just one of those old worn out “Judeopaths”.

    “What (specifically) do you dislike about Muggeridge?”

    Do you actually think I’d go back to Muggeridge just to point out to you what I don’t like about his work? Are you kidding me? You actually want to argue with me about Muggeridge? What’s next, Lord of the Rings? You are mocking me. I’ve had Jewish friends all my life, and I’ve never been spoken to (nor had them defend Christians) as you do. I SO don’t understand.

    It was Muggeridge’s (and CS Lewis too, and Augustine, etc)long winded apologetics and verbosity that your noetic flexing reminded of.

    Be well, Dweller.

    My time is up here. Be well, Yamit. Keep your hands up. And watch your back.

  2. I accept your reproof, Dweller, because you are Jewish. And I apologize if I sounded disrespectful of you. I will surely think long and hard about what you have written above. I give you my word on that one. I wish you well also.

  3. @ Michael Devolin:

    “Christopher Hitchens said of the phenomenon of antisemitism: ‘I care enough about the issue to keep my hatred pure, and to reserve it for those who truly merit it’.”

    Regrettably for Hitchens, the only about him that was pure was his hatred.

    Requiescat in pacem.

    “Curio is an antisemite.”

    I continue to await the evidence.

    He’s ignorant about a number of things, that’s clear enough.

    Also knowledgeable of a number of others in territory where judeopaths typically fear to tread.

    “My judgment is my own… therefore my ‘instinctive knowing’ (without the uses of rational processess) may differ from your[s]…”

    Actually, I’ve long been accustomed to relying on non-analytical perceptions myself; they’ve stood me in good stead, even saved my life on occasion.

    If they ever lead me to believe of Curio the things of which you suspect him, I’ll be sure to let you know.

    So far, they don’t.

    “[A]nyone who accused me of being a toad (read: sycophant) is inevitably revealing himself as inferior to me, and therefore a coward.”

    Come on, Michael, an accusation (accurate or otherwise) does not, of itself, signify ‘inferiority.’

    Nor does inferiority necessarily betoken ‘cowardice.’

    “Are you Jewish?”

    Yes.

    “If so, why are you defending someone like Curio, who has done nothing but baited Jews on this blog?”

    I don’t regard his comments — including his challenges — as constituting ‘Jew-baiting.’

    “I don’t understand or perceive why you think it necessary to befriend such an insidious character as him.”

    Indeed you don’t so understand.

    And HE apparently finds my engaging of PresentCompany equally bewildering.

    Fancy that.

    As a Jew, however, I am forbidden to bear false witness against my neighbor — and (by extension) forbidden, as well, to indulge my neighbors in that petty & pernicious pastime.

  4. @ Michael Devolin:

    “‘In any case, stumbling isn’t necessarily a bad thing’.”

    “It’s a bad thing in the sport of boxing.”

    Aye, and you do love to fight, it’s clear. (But then, you’ve got a truckload of anger in you, just bursting to break out at any moment.)

    But stumbling along a path of discovery (no sport, that) is an inevitable part of the discovery process, Michael (an observation, rest assured, for which I have direct personal experience to attest).

    If you choose, notwithstanding that, to take the attribution (viz., “stumbling”) as an insult — well, then I’ll guess you’ll just have to do so

    — at least until such time as you no longer HAVE to do so.

    “You suddenly sound to me like Malcolm Muggeridge…”

    What (specifically) do you dislike about Muggeridge?

    “Remember, Dweller: Don’t ‘quibble’.”

    If you’ll re-read what I wrote, you’ll see that I didn’t reject quibbling per se. (There are surely SOME things that warrant quibbling over.)

    I merely said that although I wouldn’t retreat over the adjective, “stumbling,” in re your path to truth, that I wouldn’t quibble over the word as used in that regard. It’s just too easy to be distracted by such things. At this point, Michael, I’ll say this much: I found reason to use the term. I also found reason to suggest to Curio that he reserve judgment over you.

    Reserving judgment is an important part of any path of discovery, and with all due respect, it’s a discipline that you also would perhaps do well to cultivate.

    “I live for the day when I’m no longer required by my conscience to ‘quibble’ over being denigrated as simplistic and naif.”

    I regard you as neither simplistic NOR naif. If you’ve been put down that way in the past, Old Boy, you’re apparently still reeling from those punches.

    If you truly want the scars to finally heal, you must be willing to give up the intense interior pleasure (that’s what it is) of resenting those who inflicted them.

    — They may have been wrong to do so, but your RESENTMENT of it [resent < L.: "to feel again"] only affixes it to you all the more securely.

    Your ego may balk at the prospect of relinquishing resentment (and especially, I suppose, at the admonition itself), but I have no control over that. I wish you well.

  5. ‘In any case, “stumbling” isn’t necessarily a bad thing.’

    It’s a bad thing in the sport of boxing. Two of my boys are fighters, I work as a trainer in the sport (I’m an ex-middleweight fighter), so my interpretation of this term is from within that context. I do not “walk unsteadily” or “encounter by chance.” You suddenly sound to me like Malcolm Muggeridge (as does “Curio” incessently), although I’m sure it’s quite unintentional. Please forgive my being contentious. I now know such passion is below you, Dweller.

    “…the adjective is not something I’d quibble over.”

    You’re just so genteel, I guess. I don’t suppose that’s a vice. And you’re not on the receiving end of the insult (we’ll see how you refrain from “quibbling” over this, my rebuttal to your post). I live for the day when I’m no longer required by my conscience to “quibble” over being denigrated as simplistic and naif. I long for such a walk in the clouds.

    ‘I’m not retreating from the characterization of “stumbling attempts.”’

    An intriguing intransigence. I didn’t see this coming, I must say. You didn’t even jab your way in; you just threw a lead right hand. And I’m not even a south-paw. I honestly perceived you as a more sensitive type. I’m just too friendly and imprudent sometimes.

    “Curio’s no coward, nor an antisemite.”

    Christopher Hitchens said of the phenomenon of antisemitism: “I care enough about the issue to keep my hatred pure, and to reserve it for those who truly merit it.” Curio is an antisemite. Whether you believe so or not is irrelevent to me. My judgment is my own and necessarily the result of how I’ve been “told/taught/etc (at least as he received it),” therefore my “instinctive knowing” (without the uses of rational processess) may differ from your ultimate knowing. And anyone who accused me of being a toad (read: sycophant) is inevitably revealing himself as inferior to me, and therefore a coward.

    I now am driven by curiosty to ask you, Dweller: Are you Jewish? If so, why are you defending someone like Curio, who has done nothing but baited Jews on this blog? I don’t understand or perceive why you think it necessary to befriend such an insidious character as him.

    Remember, Dweller: Don’t “quibble”.

  6. @ Michael Devolin:

    “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Dweller, but I don’t think I deserve the term ‘stumbling attempts’ at all.”

    I don’t mind your saying it, but I’m not retreating from the characterization of “stumbling attempts.” On the other hand, the adjective is not something I’d quibble over. In any case, “stumbling” isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

    Curio’s no coward, nor an antisemite.

  7. “So he finds himself gravitating toward the Jewish people, if only out of curiosity.”

    It’s more than by gravity and curiosity at this point in time, Dweller. I’ve been a Noachide for almost twenty years now (I forget how many exactly). The initial transition was driven by conscience and knowledge. I’ll be 58 this month. I was the only Gentile member of the JDL Canada back in the 80s. I was a personal body guard for the national director of JDL Canada at the Jim Keegstra (Holocaust denier) and Imra Finta (Nazi war criminal) trials respectively. I’ve already been convinced of the rightness of my path.

    “It’s true that his first, stumbling attempts at inquiry may not actually appear as inquiry at all…”

    I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Dweller, but I don’t think I deserve the term “stumbling attempts” at all. I made my inquiries back in the 80s, on my own, and through much study. Even today I am still reading about 5 books at a time, very little of it fiction and those books only for polishing up on my writing style. I would say I’m walking quite steadily by now.

    As for being accused of ‘toadying’, well, I have received those insults long ago, especially from Christian antisemites who hide in the blogsphere. Their cowardice leaves them no choice but to accuse those who have the courage to dispel religiously taught lies of being sycophants. I really don’t care what this asshole Curious American thinks about me or says about me.

    And yes, I did much pulling on the coats of my Jewish friends. I got my ears warmed a few times too.

  8. This was originally posted in response to Curio #39 [Sept 10, 6:30 pm] — before Michael’s response [#40]. But it was caught-by-the-bot without ever posting. So here it is again. Hope it runs this time — dw

    @ CuriousAmerican:

    “I now realize… God does not show favoritism…”

    True enough — as to individual persons.

    Cornelius, as part of the “Italian band,” was hardly a Member-of-the-Tribe.

    “[Y]ou come out of a Christian background, Devolin.”

    Evidently so — but unlike yourself, Curio, he identifies as a “Gentile”

    — and not (any longer, perhaps) as a “Christian.”

    “I do not accept the supremacism you push. You are a toady.

    I see why you say this, but it may not be so.

    It’s clear that Michael rejects much of what he understands to constitute the doctrinal elements of Christianity, as they appear to be associated in time (at least in some part) with the doing of evil in the name of good

    — notwithstanding that to do such rejecting of Xtian doctrine could well amount to throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

    And, too, he perceives that, historically, the Jew has ended up on the receiving end of much of that “Christian” evil.

    So he finds himself gravitating toward the Jewish people, if only out of curiosity.

    He knows that what he’s been told/taught/etc (at least as he received it) leaves a lot to be desired, so he senses that in certain ways he has to “start over”

    — and this time, he needs to find it out for himself (rather than as the can of beans that was perhaps crammed down his unsuspecting, adolescent craw last time out).

    He wants to get it right.

    As a student of scripture, Curio, you know this is all foretold.

    “Thus saith the LORD of hosts:
    ‘In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, shall even take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying: We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you’.” [Zech 8:23]

    In the US black community (whose language patterns often unconsciously reflect, in the oddest of ways, the medieval English-language constructions still in use when the first slave ships sailed), there is an expression, “Let me pull your coat here…” — i.e., ‘Give me your attention in this matter.’

    It’s true that his first, stumbling attempts at inquiry may not actually appear as inquiry at all, and those attempts may WELL give him the appearance of ‘toadying’ — but I think you know what appearances often turn out to be worth. . . .

    In your shoes (and FWIW), I daresay at this point I’d be reserving judgment.

  9. I cannot believe that you are actually quoting the “New Testament” on this blog. My Christian background means zero to me.

    I did not say I was inferior merely because I am a Gentile. I am inferior to the Jews as a Gentile in that I am not qualified to teach about the G-D of Israel as are the Jews. Read the Tanach. Don’t read your New Testament.

    You are enthralled by sophisms and spurious theology (what I often refer to as Christianity’s “mountain of bullshit”). I will say that Christians are creative, especially casuists like Paul of Tarsus and Augustine, but at the same time they are also hopelessly obdurate, as per their theology (a constriction of conscience) instructs them. That is their downfall (ditto Islam and Muslims). “A fool is known by a multitude of words.”

    “God treats all men equally.”

    Maybe your god does, but the G-D of Israel, the Creator of the Universe, does not. Read the Tanach. Pull you head out of that mountain of bullshit known to the world as Christianity and you will perhaps (if you have even a modicum of courage) see what I am trying to explain to you here.

    Have you ever wondered why you’re so hatefully jealous of the Jews?

    “I do not accept the supremacism you push.”

    That’s because you’re a Christian, and Christians have never accepted the G-D of Israel as defined by the Jewish sages. You’re obduracy (Christian obduracy) precludes you from ever realizing the uniqueness and exclusivity of the Jewish people.

    You could be a really good person if you had the courage to repudiate Christianity as I did and accept the G-D of Israel for who HE really is. This is exactly what Abraham did. Nothing has changed about G-D since then for Gentiles. All you need to do is accept that the Jewish people are the only people qualified to teach you about G-D, not Christians and not Muslims. If you could grow a pair as I did, begin to follow the 7 Laws of Noach (as taught by Orthodox Jews), you wouldn’t be the delusional antisemite that you are today. Contentious as you are, you’d be a great fighter against antisemitism; you could do some real good in the world. As is stands, you are being harmful and insalubrious to the world.

  10. @ CuriousAmerican:

    “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism…”

    True enough — as to individual persons.

    Cornelius, as part of the “Italian band,” was hardly a Member-of-the-Tribe.

    “[Y]ou come out of a Christian background, Devolin.”

    Evidently so — but unlike yourself, Curio, he identifies as a “Gentile”

    — and not (any longer, perhaps) as a “Christian.”

    “I do not accept the supremacism you push. You are a toady.

    I see why you say this, but it may not be so.

    It’s clear that Michael rejects much of what he understands to constitute the doctrinal elements of Christianity, as they appear to be associated in time (at least in some part) with the doing of evil in the name of good

    — notwithstanding that to do such rejecting of Xtian doctrine could well amount to throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

    And, too, he perceives that, historically, the Jew has ended up on the receiving end of much of that “Christian” evil.

    So he finds himself gravitating toward the Jewish people, if only out of curiosity.

    He knows that what he’s been told/taught/etc (at least as he received it) leaves a lot to be desired, so he senses that in certain ways he has to “start over”

    — and this time, he needs to find it out for himself (rather than as the can of beans that was perhaps crammed down his unsuspecting, adolescent craw last time out).

    He wants to get it right.

    As a student of scripture, Curio, you know this is all foretold.

    “Thus saith the LORD of hosts:
    ‘In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, shall even take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying: We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you’.” [Zech 8:23]

    In the US black community (whose language patterns often unconsciously reflect, in the oddest of ways, the medieval English-language constructions still in use when the first slave ships sailed), there is an expression, “Let me pull your coat here…” — i.e., ‘Give me your attention in this matter.’

    It’s true that his first, stumbling attempts at inquiry may not actually appear as inquiry at all, and those attempts may WELL give him the appearance of ‘toadying’ — but I think you know what appearances often turn out to be worth. . . .

    In your shoes (and FWIW), I daresay at this point I’d be reserving judgment.

  11. @ Michael Devolin:

    There should be a two-tiered system: The Jews and the non-Jews. This is Judaism. Your problem is that you cannot accept the fact that you are a Gentile and not a Jew. I’ve accepted my role as a Gentile before G-D, but you are a Christian so you assert yourself as though you were equal to the Jew, which you are not. You’re not even close (nor am I). If you want the better of the two-tiered system, become a Jew. Otherwise, quit whining about equal rights for your friends the Muslim jihadists.

    What are you nuts? Are you a self-hating Gentile.

    I have no problem with Jews; but do not tell me that Gentiles are inferior.

    Acts 10:34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism

    Peter the Jewish apostle finally realized that God treats all men equally.

    I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW

    Yamit does not accept the Brit Chadashah (New Covenant).

    But you come out of a Christian background, Devolin.

    I do not accept the supremacism you push. You are a toady.

  12. @ dweller:

    the two.

    When I’ve visited Israel, I’ve seen Israeli cops.

    They seem to share certain qualities in common with all cops, if you catch my drift.

    Given my “druthers,” and as a general rule, I’d opt for IDF troops over Israeli police. . . .

    Of course, that’s not allowing for the YASSAM, Border types & other special, asshole units — which, by their nature, will always exist as a class unto themselves, whether military OR civilian.

    [Think: Black-&-Tans, Auxies, etc.]

    Good analogy, but only to an extent. A better example would be the Penal Laws, which totally disenfranchised the Irish.

    This is not to equate the Irish with the Palestinians. There are too many differences.

    But it is to say the two-tiered legal systems bear a resemblance.

    The Israeli-Palestinian problem is too complex to reduce to simple paradigms.

    Dr. Martin Sherman’s idea of buying them out is humane and makes the most sense.

  13. Dweller, I was thinking in Torah terms, of Jew and non-Jew. Of course, I know what you mean otherwise. Many of my family are cops, and we tease the shit out of them. When my father died, my 1st cousin (he’s the Superintendent of Peel Regional Police)attended the funeral. On our way to the brunch afterwards (within walking distance), we all “jay-walked” and shouted at him from across the street to watch us breaking the law. It was hilarious.

  14. @ Michael Devolin:

    “If you want the better of the two-tiered system, become a Jew.”

    If there is in fact a “two-tiered system,” it’s not at all clear to me that the civilian enforcement system IS indeed “the better” of the two.

    When I’ve visited Israel, I’ve seen Israeli cops.

    They seem to share certain qualities in common with all cops, if you catch my drift.

    Given my “druthers,” and as a general rule, I’d opt for IDF troops over Israeli police. . . .

    Of course, that’s not allowing for the YASSAM, Border types & other special, asshole units — which, by their nature, will always exist as a class unto themselves, whether military OR civilian.

    [Think: Black-&-Tans, Auxies, etc.]

  15. @ CuriousAmerican:

    “They explain the two-tiered system.”

    Admittedly I didn’t watch the whole clip. (I rarely do, as I’m on-the-clock in the university library here & have to maximize my time online.)

    But from what I did see (and read), it wasn’t at all clear whether the two ‘tiers’ to which you refer were the consequence of something explicitly encoded thus in law

    — or (as seems more likely, though I couldn’t say) the result of a more-than-half-assed response to a more-than-half-assed response to a more-than-half-assed situation.

    I suppose I’m going off-point here [below] — but it would be a mistake to lose perspective by overlooking the following:

    The GOI decision — after 1967 — to declare the provinces under the jurisdiction of “belligerent occupation” was a seriously ill-advised (humongously bone-headed) one.

    They are not ‘occupied’ in the legal sense of the term.

    They were not taken from their legitimate sovereign. So how could they be ‘occupied’?

    The party that had held them did so unlawfully

    — having seized them, during the ’48 War of Independence, from the UN temporary trusteeship (UN successor to the League mandate repository, but like that structure, long defunct by ’67), and having retained the lands, in continued defiance of the Security Council for the 19 years between ’48 & the Six-Day War.

    The provinces’ last de facto “legitimate” sovereign before 1967 was the Ottoman Empire — which had been dismantled four-&-a-half decades before the ’67 war. Those provinces’ de jure legitimate sovereign (though not de facto before Israel’s acquisition in 1967) was arguably the Jewish People, per San Remo.

    As long as Israel continues to maintain a jurisdiction of “belligerent occupation” over the provinces, this cannot possibly get better. For that reason (among others one could point to), the issuance of the Levy Report is a good thing, long overdue. It’s a step in the right direction — provided it doesn’t signal the end of the stepping. . . .

  16. There should be a two-tiered system: The Jews and the non-Jews. This is Judaism. Your problem is that you cannot accept the fact that you are a Gentile and not a Jew. I’ve accepted my role as a Gentile before G-D, but you are a Christian so you assert yourself as though you were equal to the Jew, which you are not. You’re not even close (nor am I). If you want the better of the two-tiered system, become a Jew. Otherwise, quit whining about equal rights for your friends the Muslim jihadists.

  17. @ dweller:

    @ CuriousAmerican:

    “Israeli settlers… are always under civil law; while Arabs are under martial law. 2 completely different systems.”

    Dunno where you get this, but if you’ve got something I’ll look at it

    Look at this video narrated by Israeli soldiers (subtitled)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuGBSgnM4rs
    At 16:01 They explain the two-tiered system.

    These are ISRAELI VETERANS, not Palestinians.

    The explain the history; and mention BOTH Palestinian Crimes and Israeli Crimes.

    The point I was making is that there is a two-tiered system and they admit it.

    They are speaking Hebrew. This are not actors.

    Again, the crimes of both are explained. But … my point was there is a two tiered system.

    Some, probably most here, will see this as a biased video. Maybe it is. But facts are facts. There is a two tiered system.

    You asked to see if there was something I could show you. There is.

    I am not denying Israel’s right to Hebron, but there is a two-tiered system.

  18. @ dweller:

    ’d seen the Amona clip[s] before. (Several of them have run on this site.)

    My first reaction at the time was not “Holocaust,” but rather — “cossacks.”

    A lot of people used pogrom, which was the more accurate term.

    The cossack observation of yours was a good analogy.

  19. @ CuriousAmerican:

    “Israeli settlers… are always under civil law; while Arabs are under martial law. 2 completely different systems.”

    Dunno where you get this, but if you’ve got something I’ll look at it.

    In the administered territories, the only difference between the way the inhabitants are treated seems to be in the fact that the Arabs have direct access to the Israel High Court as a venue of original jurisdiction.

    Can you imagine the US Supreme Court permitting ANYBODY other than State govts or intra-Federal agencies (against each other) to present their cases — for ORIGINAL jurisdiction (rather than merely for review of the record below, if at all)?

  20. @ CuriousAmerican:

    “I am pretty sure a lot of non-Jewish troops were brought in.”

    Got anything more solid than a hunch for that?

    “The Nazis found out that they could not get 90% of German troops to kill Jewish civilians.”

    Actually, they had means of compulsion more generally available to the Reich than GOI does. Seeing a Wehrmacht officer promptly blow away a grunt who hesitated to carry out a direct order would’ve had a most “salutary” effect henceforth on that private’s or corporal’s platoon buddies. . . .

    So if that “90 percent” were unwilling to comply with killing Jewish civilians at first, it’s doubtful that they REMAINED uncooperative for long.

  21. @ CuriousAmerican:

    “That Amona riot was painful to watch. One Jewish guy called it a Holocaust (which is a woeful exaggeration. Jews do overuse the term Holocaust – Nazis would have just brought in flamethrowers, saving them time).”

    I’d seen the Amona clip[s] before. (Several of them have run on this site.)

    My first reaction at the time was not “Holocaust,” but rather — “cossacks.”

    (No doubt the horseback element coupled with the viciousness had something to do with that observation.)

    But most Jews, like most other people, will use whatever term carries the most immediate and searing imagery from their thinking. Don’t expect historical proportionality to enter into such considerations any time soon.

    A visceral reaction will prompt whatever language is most readily available to put the point across.

  22. @ CuriousAmerican:

    “The Jews — generally (and myopically, but earnestly) — tried to make it work…”

    “There is a large subset of Israelis… who set out to sabotage the peace process with settlements…”

    It was not anywhere near as large a “subset” in 1993 as it became after Rosh HaShana 2000 — onset of the Oslo War.

    The reason your comparison is not apt revolves around TENSES, Curio — and by ignoring the tenses, you create a “straw man.”

    Lots of Israelis will NOW readily sabotage the “peace process.”

    I have never suggested otherwise. [Re-read my posts.]

    However, the vast & overwhelming majority of Israelis DID support Oslo — at first, and for a long time.

    And throughout that period, they did NOT make such attempts at sabotage. That’s a fact — and a significant distinction. They gave it a serious and sincere try.

    The vast & overwhelming majority of Palys, OTOH, never supported the Oslo “process” except insofar as it appeared to be a tool which promised to improve their objective of getting rid of the Jews.

    That ALSO is a fact.

    “Yamit prefers the term revenant…”

    Well, I surely hope he does — because I believe it’s a fitting term.

    But it wasn’t HE who invoked it in this discussion.

    If you’ll care to review comment #6 above, you’ll find that it was posted by none other than that li’l ol’ winemaker, me.

  23. @ CuriousAmerican:
    Regretfully again, I must say that a regime, any regime, that creates and operates such degenerate specimens and whole formations, eventually their use will become the norm. I have seen it in Argentina, (Juntas epoch), Chile, (Pinochet regime), South Africa and former Rhodesia all along. Observed that in person in all of those places.
    In Israel the forces in question as far as I know have ONLY been consistently used against Jews. Outside sporadic pre-coordinated hits on some Hamasniks, seldom homes and not ever whole towns destruction have taken place.
    I will accept no parallel considerations between the bestial entities from Islam and Jewish people returning to our ancestral land.

  24. @ Michael Devolin:

    Michael Devolin says:

    September 9, 2012 at 3:58 am

    “Jews do overuse the term Holocaust”

    Says who? Just because the Muslims and Christians replace veridical history with their religious fantasies doesn’t mean the Jews cannot tell the truth about theirs, and as often as they like. “Iron sharpens iron.”

    “The Nazis weeded out psychopathic soldiers and posted them to the camps.”

    This is total nonsense and sciolistic drivel.

    “Regular soldiers cannot be so cruel.”

    Oh yes they can. Naivete such as yours becomes immoral when asserted in a public forum as historical truth. This proves you know very little about the Holocaust.

    “If all men are good, there can be no Auschwitz.” -Bruno Bettelheim

    Most men are NOT cruel; but most are passive cowards in the face of cruelty. They won’t stand up to it.

    Most Germans were not mass murderers; but most were not going to rist their neck standing up for the Jews.

    You need a genetic psychopath or a brutalized human being to be cruel.

    They found out from studies during the Civil War that many soldiers did not fire the rifles even in combat. They found one gun of a man killed, who had 27 wads in his rifle. He would load his rifle and pretend to shoot it.

    You have to train men to be cruel. Some come to it because of severe child abuse or later trauma.

    Some are born to it.

    But most do not have it.

    Evil is not bland. It is active. Cowardice, by which evil survives, is bland.

    When you see police brutality, do you intervene? If not, then you are a coward.

    The Nazis, and all totalitarian states, cull out psychopaths. They can use them.

  25. @ SHmuel HaLevi:
    The YASSAM units, (black uniformed), the special Border Police, (green-gray uniformed), paramilitary regiments and the General Security Services GSS, or SHABAK includes vast numbers of specialized spies, saboteurs and informants within its “Jewish Section”, copied from the KGB “YEVSEKTZIA”, using identical types and procedures as the KGB used. The later directly controlled by the PM Office.

    Everybody both pro- and anti-Israel has noticed that Israel’s forces use a lot of East European authoritarian tactics.

    A lot of this comes from the ethnic profiles of Israel.

    But they use it on the Arabs. You can find video where IDF soldiers admit what was done. They are not all liars.

    Israeli settlers (or revenants, if you are Yamit) are always under civil law; while Arabs are under martial law. 2 completely different systems. Arabs are denied lawyers and coerced into confessions. Show trials. Do not kid yourself. It gets ugly.

    Israel announced ahead of time its destruction of Amona. It goes after Arab housing without warning to prevent Arab actions.

    But the Amona riot was brutal. Riding horses into an unarmed crowd is beyond vicious. Israel has tear gas, skunk gas, heat rays, electromagnetic wave transmitters which make people nauseous. Sound blasters. They did not need such a show of violence. Water cannon. Cold water would suffice.

    That armed attack of those troops was criminal. To storm in swinging like that reminds me of the viciousness of the British vs. its colonials.

    That was sad to see.

    They did that at Amona just to prove how vicious they were. I am pretty sure a lot of non-Jewish troops were brought in. Standard authoritarian tricks.

    But don’t kids yourself, a lot of that has been used on the Arabs. That aspect may not bother you, but it should. It came back to haunt the Jews at Amona. You can bet some of the more brutal psychopaths from Hebron duty were brought up to Amona.

    The Nazis found out that they could not get 90% of German troops to kill Jewish civilians. So they ended up culling out psychopaths.

    The same thing happened at Amona. 90% of Jewish troops could not do that. So they brought in talent from brawls with the Arabs. The nutty soldiers who got a kick out of torturing innocent Arabs for fun. These were brought in. The officers gave them the pep talk: These Amona Jews are just like the Arabs you are fighting, and the rest is history.

    If you want to understand the type … Read the Godfather. Not see the movie. Read the book. It is much better. Don Corleone has a pyschopathic hitman. Luca Brasi. Read the descriptions of Luca Brasi.

    That is the type you want. That is the type they brought into Amona.

    And, yes, Israel does cull psychopaths to do that. Only a psychopath could batter innocent people like that.

    You cull them out. Officers notice them. Most troops from the West Bank come home at the end of the day, tired and disgusted. But 1 out 20 comes home happy that he broke someones arm. The officer notices who volunteers to do the violent jobs.

    These get a psychiatric profile, and they get trained.

    They get practice beating up Arabs; but when needed they beat up Jews.

    There is some psychopathic behavior against Settlers
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YeYjolyfRy4

    And they brought in Arabs to knock down the houses. Typical totalitarian trick.
    Play off ethnic groups against each other.

    CBS was there the very same day
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A7XtT91yO6g

    But never showed the other side of the story about the IDF brutalizing the settlers.

    Israel’s government has gone pyschopathic.

    But do not kid yourself. Brutality against the Arabs is part of this dynamic.

    The Soviets used this trick. Army commanders were almost always of Christian stock. Secret Police were Jewish. Every unit in the Army had a Christian commander and a Jewish political officer. They despised each other; but the Soviets knew that no armed unit could go against the government because the Secret Police and the Army detested each other. They set this up to keep the groups from conspiring against the government.

    When you bring in Arabs to knock down settler houses (even if the settlers are totally wrong) then you know the government is psychopathic. It is not acting immorally but amorally, which is the worst.

  26. “Jews do overuse the term Holocaust”

    Says who? Just because the Muslims and Christians replace veridical history with their religious fantasies doesn’t mean the Jews cannot tell the truth about theirs, and as often as they like. “Iron sharpens iron.”

    “The Nazis weeded out psychopathic soldiers and posted them to the camps.”

    This is total nonsense and sciolistic drivel.

    “Regular soldiers cannot be so cruel.”

    Oh yes they can. Naivete such as yours becomes immoral when asserted in a public forum as historical truth. This proves you know very little about the Holocaust.

    “If all men are good, there can be no Auschwitz.” -Bruno Bettelheim

  27. @ CuriousAmerican:
    Well… Hard as it may be, you mention some realities that I agree with.
    The Government of Israel, AKA GoI using the the World Bank created acronym, have used since Oslo many gullible people, regiments of specially selected psychopaths, formed into several units specially trained to assault Jews. Pictures of the training camps appeared in newspapers.
    The GoI never use them to destroy Arab-“partners” homes or towns. Wrong on that Curious”.
    The said GoI also uses specialized “jurists”, courtiers and police to the same ends.
    The YASSAM units, (black uniformed), the special Border Police, (green-gray uniformed), paramilitary regiments and the General Security Services GSS, or SHABAK includes vast numbers of specialized spies, saboteurs and informants within its “Jewish Section”, copied from the KGB “YEVSEKTZIA”, using identical types and procedures as the KGB used. The later directly controlled by the PM Office.
    They operated the infamous provocateur Avishai Raviv AKA “champagne” who was their direct link to the sordid Rabin murder.
    And..
    Since all units and subsystems are paid and supported by State Budgets, everyone in the combina KNOWS the above. Every single Knesset member knows.
    In fact all that I mention has been openly published.
    SOLUTION.
    Total System of government removal and free elections of a NEW one.

  28. That Amona riot was painful to watch. One Jewish guy called it a Holocaust (which is a woeful exaggeration. Jews do overuse the term Holocaust – Nazis would have just brought in flamethrowers, saving them time).

    But it was still vicious to watch.

    Someone posted: How could Jewish soldiers be so vicious? (I used a translator engine)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMtltu16pGk&feature=related

    Maybe they had practice beating up Arabs. It is not easy to turn cruelty on and off.

    Probably, a lot of soldiers were not Jewish. Druze or Arab volunteers were brought in. Typical trick. When the Chinese wanted to bring down the Tianneman protests, they brought in non-ethnic Chinese troops.

    The Nazis weeded out psychopathic soldiers and posted them to the camps. Regular soldiers cannot be so cruel.

    I am sure Israel psychologically sorts out soldiers for this duty, too.
    It was brutal. Sad to watch.

    I have to ask myself, if the Arabs did, that would the Israelis beat them so badly or just collapse the building on them, and save themselves time.

    Yes, there is cruelty shown to the Arabs. The IDF probably brought in some of the more cruel soldiers and said, “Pretend these are Arabs”

    That was painful to watch.

    If the Arabs were willing to stage one or two Amonas, rather than throwing bricks, the blockback would stop building demolitions.

  29. @ dweller:
    The Jews — generally (and myopically, but earnestly) — tried to make it work

    There is a large subset of Israelis – Yamit prefers the term revenant , but no one knows what that means. So most would call them settlers – who set out to sabotage the peace process with settlements, or to use Yamit’s terms revenant rebuilding.

    This is a series by the Maccabean Youth

    “Israel to her biblical borders… NO RETREAT!” (0:35) on Part 1 is their motto

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d2s6XgW7PI PART 1
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW18tpU6OPk PART 2
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvO5lWVKMAY PART 3

    Then you have THE WOMEN IN GREEN
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnAAwjH5lcA

    Then you have the AMONA RIOTS (This is painful to watch)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMtltu16pGk&feature=related

    They are INTENTIONALLY SABOTAGING the PEACE PROCESS. Maybe it deserves to be sabotaged. Maybe not.

    I am not even saying the Maccabean and Revenant (Settler) Youth are wrong. I am saying they are sabotaging the Peace Process.

    Maybe rightly! Maybe not! Maybe it deserves to be sabotaged.

    But they are sabotaging it.

    That is clear fact.

    Dweller.

    The Israeli government was not going through hundreds of Amonas. I know that. You know that.

    So, yes, they are sabotaging the Peace Process, which they view as illegitimate.

    But they are sabotaging it.

  30. @ CuriousAmerican:

    “Where is there moral equivalency?”

    In your next two statements:

    “I just said both sides sabotaged it. And both sides did.”

    That is simply not so, Curio — and calling it so won’t make it so.

    The Palys — generally — sabotaged it.

    The Jews — generally (and myopically, but earnestly) — tried to make it work

    — right up until the point where Arafat & the Palys overplayed their hand & showed their true colors in ways that couldn’t be mistaken.

    At that point, the Israelis did whatever was necessary to protect themselves from the fell consequences of their imprudent decision to entrust themselves to Oslo.

    You try to stand above it all, Curio, in seeming Olympian detachment, asserting that ‘both’ parties betrayed the “process.”

    That itself is an appeal to “moral equivalence” — ignoring the fact that the behavior of the two sides was anything but ‘morally equivalent.’

    “I did not venture as to who was right or wrong.”

    If you care to make a systematic study of those instances where “moral equivalence” is resorted to over a matter where (like this one) moral equivalency is NOT apropos, I daresay you’ll find that those who DO so resort — very rarely DO “venture as to who was right or wrong.” They know that (if they, first, carefully set up their ducks in a row) they don’t need to.

    They know it’s more effective to let the reader draw his ‘own’ conclusions. . . .

  31. It is always useful to ask a person in such a situation for a definition. Exactly what is his Zionism? He will most likely give you some sort of leftist, wishy washy concept. What Zionism means to a Torah Jew, is the return to the land that G-D gave us in order to live in it according to how G-D commanded us. What Torah Jews wish to destroy is the idea of returning to this land in order to live like Russian peasants or American suburbanites. @ Ted Belman:

  32. I just received the following email from a very prominent Israeli analyst.

    I made lately a big story about the Haredim and met with them and visited their homes- they are certainly NOT Zionist. They want Zionism destroyed.

    I replied that the poll surprised me but I hadn’t realized they were that bad.

  33. @ Samuel Fistel:

    I think that your postulation is foolish. Given the circumstances you allege, the tru Torah Jew would not be compromising his “principles by joining. The Torah doesn’t allow him to bare his neck for the knife. It is forbidden. He should join, learn all there is to be learned about self defence, go to live in Yesha and THEN, along with hundreds of thousands of others who have done the same thing, formulate and declare an independent state, offering Israel a mutually acceptable binding treaty. That would be a true Torah Jew.

    However, Jews, especially “religious Jews” are such a contentious, divisive and splinterable horde of fools, they will never join together to do such a sensible thing. You have the fanatical follwers of the Rebbe of “This” feuding for ages with the equally lunatic followers of the Rebbe of “That” and both equally dismissive of the followers of the “Ba’al Something or other”.

    in other words, those who rely completely on religious devotion, be it serious or quackery, can expect kicks in the backsides, especially when the patience and forbearance of the majority, as well as their wallets, run out. And who can say that they won’t deserve it?? Not I.

  34. @ Michael Devolin:

    he headline of this article is flawed and deceptive, perhaps deliberately.

    The obvious is rarely noticed, a la Poe’s “The Purloined Letter’…… If 62% of haredidm are Zionist, then, by inference, 38% are NOT. They would not agree.

    If 32% of Leftists are not Zionists, the, by inference, 68% ARE Zionists. the poll doesn’t seem to have a category of “undecided’.

    As for the “wonderful” 44% of Arab Israelis happy to get all the perks they wouldn’t have in an Arab society, GREAT !. But what country could survive with a potentially terrorist and saboteur class of 900,000 people. NONE. For me this would be a worry, but for the pollsters………it’s great.

  35. Why won’t Haredim join the IDF and fight for Israel?

    Haredim are called “ultra-Orthodox Jews” by the western liberal atheistic media. “Ultra” means that they are fanatic and uncompromising, and implies that they are out-of-touch, live in the past, and have become obsolete in our “modern, rational, enlightened “ world.

    Of course, a definition like that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe in HaShem and Torah, are you going to join a “Jewish and democratic” army led by leftist atheistic officers who hold Torah in contempt, and which will make you compromise your beliefs by forcing you to mingle with women and open homosexuals?

    The obvious answer is “not if you can help it.” You might ask, “So why doesn’t the IDF just form all-male Haredi units, led by Torah-true Jews?” As far as I know, Haredim would gladly join such units.

    However, the atheist leftist generals who control the IDF would never tolerate this. So far, since Israel still has sufficient non-Haredi recruits to keep things going, the leftist generals not only do not want a Torah-friendly IDF, they want an IDF that violates Torah as much a possible, in the name of “democracy”, “human rights”, “freedom of religion”, “diversity”, etc.

    But note that although these guys are trying to force Haredim to join the IDF, at the same time they would never consider forcing Israeli arab muslims to join, knowing full well that any guns given to the “Israeli” arab muslims would soon be turned on the Jews (like America and Afghanistan).

    But the times they are a changin’. Demographics is destiny. The atheist leftist generals have few kids, and those kids are increasingly becoming post-Zionist draft-dodgers. So just by holding fast and keeping Torah-true, (and having lots of Jewish babies to allow more Jewish souls to descend from Heaven), with G-d’s help, Torah will win and we will have the merit of rebuilding G-d’s Holy House in Jewish Yerusahalayim.

  36. @ Laura:

    Laura says:

    September 7, 2012 at 5:21 pm

    @ CuriousAmerican:

    Let’s be honest. The Peace process was never alive.

    The Palestinians refused to concede Israel’s right to exist; and a large part of Israel – especially the settler class – refuse to acknowledge a right for Palestine to exist in Judea and Samaria.

    Both were intent on sabotaging it.

    Spare me the moral equivalency. The “palestinians” have no basis for their claims to Judea and Samaria. And besides, even if they were given this territory for their own state, they would not end their jihad against Israel. The ultimate aim is the obliteration of the Jewish state.

    Have you lost your mind?

    Where is there moral equivalency? I just said both sides sabotaged it. And both sides did.

    I did not venture as to who was right or wrong.

    You are running perilously close to vicious.

  37. Like any good socialist, leftist are by definition “universalist and or egalitarian” for everybody but themselves. They sell this rhetoric to the believers while they themselves live like “kings and queens”. Suffice to see what is going on in Europe. According to Lou Dobs (he extracted info from a book recently published), of the 21 Mi unionized individuals in the US, more than 1/2 a Mi make more than $100,000.00/y not mentioning any perks. The leadership make each more than 500,00.00. I congratulate them. In spirit they are great democrats in action they are great Republicans. Many of these are Jews!!!!!

  38. @ CuriousAmerican:
    Spare me the moral equivalency. The “palestinians” have no basis for their claims to Judea and Samaria. And besides, even if they were given this territory for their own state, they would not end their jihad against Israel. The ultimate aim is the obliteration of the Jewish state.

  39. Ultimately only a Torah Jew can be a Zionist. If the basis of your living here is not that G-D gave us this land and requires us to live on it in a certain way in order to retain it, than you are just one of a long line of conquerors. Just as we conquered and replaced those before us, so others can come and replace us. It is difficult to find any place on the globe that is occupied today by the same people who lived there a thousand years ago and nearly impossible if we go back two or three thousand years. Without the claim to Divine Right to the land, Zionism is ridiculous.

    It is the lack of such a claim that is the root of all our problems today. After the miracles of the Six Day War, the Goyim where in shock of the open hand of G-D. Afterwards when the Torah haters begged the Arabs to return and gifted them with all the Holy cites of Israel, the shock turned into contempt and anger. (This is parallel to what happened at Ay after the defeat of Jericho. The arrogance of one man brought calamity on the whole nation. See: Joshua, chapter 7.) This contempt and anger has morphed into scorn and hatred. When those who assert themselves as the leaders of Israel willingly give land, guns, money and legitimacy to those who murder us and call for our extermination, can the Goyim be blamed for not accepting our sovereignty over the land? Who in the history of the world has ever done such a thing aside from the twisted and perverted haters of the Torah here?

    So do not be surprised that so many Torah Jews are Zionists. We are the true Zionists.

  40. I believe the article main subject is about Charedi public’s Zionism and the lack of Zionism in the secular public. Peace and Ben Gurion are sideline subjects.
    Is it not that remarkable? The truth is now exposed. For some it may be remarkable but for us it is a well known fact. The fable fabricators have been feeding their usual malarkey promoting exactly the opposite.
    Just as much, the peace industry did the same. The “process” was conceived in secrecy violating standing laws, was advanced by using bribery and deceit and ended up in consequence.
    Ben Gurion said UN SHNUN and others added, peace shmease.

  41. Yes, I would like to hear this guy explain what he means by “the settler class.”

    “…they regard themselves as revenants.”

    They are more than just mere revenants. They are as those who have retrieved stolen property from the thieves who first made off with it.

    Every square inch of property Israel has won from her Arab Muslim enemies was already Jewish property long before the Muslim hordes acquired it through military expansionism (read: Islamic Crusades) and long before Yassir Arafat replaced the veridical history of the Middle East with his personal infantile fantasies and ethnically cleansed the term “Palestinian of any Jewish context.

    The problem with Arab Muslims is not their refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist. The Zionist Jew is not really expectant of Arab Muslims recognizing “Israel’s right to exist” and does not really care. What is important to the Zionist Jew is for Arab Muslims to leave/get out/fuck off out of Israel proper and make habitat within the vast array of Arab Muslim adrocracies surrounding the State of Israel.

    When the Arab Muslims depart Israel proper, then Israel could begin a real and meaningful “peace process”–one that includes the threat of nuclear decimation of any Arab Muslim country contributing to terrorist attacks against the Jewish people, whether in Israel proper or in the Diaspora. The opportunities offered the Arab Muslim (every one an insane idea and contrary to Torah) have long ago passed into Islam’s dark history of anti-Jewish hatred.

    I remember as a Christian once reading verbose homilies on what is the meaning of “turning the other cheek” according to the infinite number of “seventy times seventy.” But my grandfather had this all figured out in his own way. He once said to me, “You know, Christians say ‘Turn the other cheek’, but watch out when I run out of cheeks!” There is now no “peace process” that will ever work between the Jews of Israel and the Muslims of the Middle East. There never was. And for those who foolishly believe otherwise, well, they have not yet realized that the State of Israel and the Jewish people have run out of cheeks.

  42. @ CuriousAmerican:

    “The Peace process was never alive.”

    Oh, yes it was.

    Regrettably.

    It shouldn’t have been alive, as it was flawed from its inception.

    Cal Thomas compared the “peace process” to “processed cheese.”

    Just as processed cheese tends to be more process than real cheese,

    — right from the jump, the “peace process” was a lot less peace than “process.”

    But it certainly was alive.

    “The Palestinians refused to concede Israel’s right to exist…”

    Correct.

    “Both were intent on sabotaging [the peace process].”

    Wrong tense, where the Jews were concerned.

    The Arabs were always intent on sabotaging it.

    They would use it for their own extortionate purposes — and then, whenever it seemed to be losing its utility to them for squeezing more concessions out of GOI, they reverted to type: killing women, kids, the weak, the elderly, the helpless (all the usual soft targets), etc. Then they’d make more noises about “peace, peace” — so, once again, the Jews would drop their guard. (Jews are so easy.)

    A lot of JEWS actually did support the “peace process”. . . . at first.

    In fact, for a long time they supported it. (They were wearying of the struggle, and “hope springs eternal,” and all that.)

    After the 2000 OSLO WAR, however — viz., the Intifada which began that year (one full year before 9/11) — & which lasted till the barrier was constructed, several years later

    — that all changed.

    This time, Arafat & the Palys had simply overplayed their hand — and large numbers of Israelis (centrists & lefties included) began realizing what they’d been dealing with all that time.

    They SHOULD’VE known it long before. Long before Oslo ’92. But they’d believed what they WANTED to believe. “Men prefer to believe what they prefer to be true.” Francis Bacon

    So it took the pain of the Oslo Intifada to make a lot of Israelis start questioning previous assumptions.

    “… and a large part of Israel… refuse to acknowledge a right for Palestine to exist in Judea and Samaria.”

    A large and growing part refuses to, yes. NOW they refuse to.

    Didn’t USE to be anywhere near so vehement, as I recall.

    “…especially the settler class…”

    “Class” is a very loose term.

    And therefore easily subject to mischief in its usage.

    As for their being “settlers,” they regard themselves as revenants.

    Tip-of-the-hat to Yisrael Medad [author (w/ Zvi Harry Hurwitz), of Peace in the Making: The Menachem Begin – Anwar Sadat Personal Correspondence (Gefen Pblg, NY, 2011)], for perhaps the first usage of the term in this context:

    “According the American Heritage Dictionary, a revenant is one who returns after a lengthy absence. A revenant can be any person who shows up after a long absence, such as those who come back to their ancestral home after years of political exile. This is the classic definition, although Sir Walter Scott used it in his novel, The Fair Maid, to denote a ghost. It stems from the French ‘revenir,’ which means simply ‘to return’.”

    [Yisrael Medad, “Revenant is Relevant,” Jerusalem Post, 29 Sept 02]

  43. Continued from #4

    Public Hearings Before Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry – Mar. 11th 1946 Part II.

    there is a world history and a Jewish history and in that history there is a country by name Judea or as we call it Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel. We have called it Israel since the days of Joshua the son of Nun. There was such a country in history, there was and it is still there. It is a little country, a very little country, but that little country made a very deep impression on world history and on our history because this country made us a people; our people made this country. No other people in the world made this country; this country made no other people in the world. Again they are beginning to make this country and again this country is beginning to make us. It is unique; it is a fact, and this country came into world history by many wars, Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and others, it gained a place in history and in world history for the same reason, because our people created here, perhaps a limited, but a very great civilisation, and shaped our people, the Jewish people, to make it as it is from then until today; a very exclusive people on one side and a universal people on the other; very national and very international. Exclusive in its internal life and its attachment to its history, to its national and religious tradition; very universal in its religious, social and ethical ideas. We were told there is one God in the entire world, that there is unity of the human race because every human being was created in the image of God, that there ought to be and will be brotherhood and social justice, peace between peoples. Those were our ideas; this [10] was our culture and this made history in this country and it took its place in world history. We created here a book, many books; many were lost, many remained only in translations, but a considerable number, some twenty four remain in their original language, Hebrew, in the same language, Mr. Chairman, in which I am thinking now when I am talking to you in English and which the Jews in this country are speaking now. We went into exile, we took that book with us and in that book which was more to us than a book, it was us, we took with us our country in our hearts, in our soul, and there is such a thing as a soul, as well as a body, and these three, the land, the book and the people are one for us for ever. It is an indissoluble bond. There is no material power which can dissolve it except by destroying us physically. The distinguished British Chairman of this Commission Friday morning quoted something which was found in a book by Sir Ronald Storrs and another gentlemen I don’t remember. Sir, our rights and our attachment and our significance in this country you will find in that book, in that book alone. That book is binding upon us, only that book. It is binding on us. Whether or not it is on anyone else is not for me to say. I know many Christian people which believe it is binding upon them too, but it is binding upon us. You cannot conceive of our people without this book, either in the far away past or in the present, and it is my conviction in the future too.

    Why? What is it? A man can change many things, even his religion, even his wife, even his name. There is one thing which a man cannot change, his parents. There is no means of changing that. The parents of our people is this country. It is unique, but it is there.

    More than 300 years ago a ship by the name of the Mayflower left Plymouth for the New World. It was a great event in American and English history. I wonder how many Englishmen or how many Americans know exactly the date when that ship left Plymouth, how many people were on the ship, and what was the kind of bread that people ate when they left Plymouth.

    Well, more than 3,300 years ago the Jews left Egypt. It was more than 3,000 years ago and every Jew in the world knows exactly the date when we left. It was on the 15th of Nisan. The bread they ate was matzoth. Up to date all the Jews throughout the world on the 15th of Nisan eat the same matzoth, in America, in Russia, and tell the story of the exile from Egypt and tell what happened, all the sufferings that happened to the Jews since they went into exile. They finish by these two sentences: “This year we are slaves; next year we will be free. This year we are here; next year we will be in Zion, the land of Israel.” Jews are like that.

    There was a third reason why we came, and this is the crux of the problem. We came over here with an urge for Jewish independence, what you call a Jewish State. I want to explain to you, since this is the center of the entire programme, what is meant by that. When people talk outside in the would about a state, it means power, it means domination. I want to tell you what it means for us. We came here to be free Jews. I mean in the full sense of the word, 100 percent free and 100 percent Jews, which we couldn’t be anywhere, couldn’t be in the full sense Jews, we couldn’t be free, in no country in the world, and we believe we are entitled to be Jews, to live a full Jewish life as an Englishman lives an English life and an American lives an American life, and to be free from fear, from dependence, not to be an object of pity and sympathy, of philanthropy and justice by others. We believe we are entitled to that as human beings and as a people.

    A Jewish state means Jewish security. If a Jew in the world lacks anything it is security, and he is entitled to the feeling of security. Why? Because even if he is safe he is not safe by himself. Somebody else provides for his security. Well, we want to provide for our own security, and we are doing it from the beginning of our time.

    I came to Palestine 40 years ago and I went to work in Sejera, a little village in Galilee. I was never before a worker nor never before a farmer and I had to learn two things at once, to hold a plow in my hands and a rifle. I had to provide for my security, for the security of the village, and I went to work in the fields of Sejera with a rifle on my shoulders. We had a special organization to keep watch. It was called a Shomer. There were very few. They were attacked from time to time and when I stood watch in the long nights in Sejera and looked at the skies I understood the magnificence of the full meaning in the book of Solomon, that [16] the heavens are telling the glory of God, because I had never seen such glorious skies at night as when I was a watchman.

    But when we provided for our own security I went out to work in the field with a rifle. We also tried to make friends with our neighbours. It wasn’t easy. I don’t know what the reasons were for attacking us. They sometimes attacked others too, but us a little more. They have a great contempt for people who are afraid. They learned to know we were not like that, that we could take care of ourselves and they respected us and we made an effort to win their friendship, and in many cases we succeeded, and we are making this effort all the time in all our settlements to maintain the best human relations with our neighbours, the Arabs. Even if sometimes they are attacking us we don’t remember. We want to remember the good things, not the bad. But we had to provide for our own security because we came here to take care of ourselves. We never gave up our defence weapons, and they were never used in our hands against anybody, only for our protection.

    PUBLIC HEARINGS BEFORE THE ANGLO-AMERICAN COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY JERUSALEM, PALESTINE 11TH MARCH 1946

    APPEARANCES: Mr. David Ben Gurion: Chairman of the Executive, Jewish Agency.

  44. Public Hearings Before Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry – Mar. 11th 1946 Part II.

    “What I am going to do is simply to tell you what we Jews in our own country, who we are, what we are doing, what we are aiming at. Why are we here, for what purpose are we here? Perhaps this will explain things.”

    There are here now some 600,000, more than one-third are born in this country, some of them living here for many centuries, not only in the towns. There are Jewish fellaheen, peasants who are living here for centuries. They are living in Ramleh and in Galilee, but the majority of us were not born in this country; I am one of them. We came from all parts of the world, from all countries, and we came not only from countries where Jews were persecuted physically, exterminated, repressed as in Nazi Germany, as in Poland, as in the Yemen, as in Morocco, as in Tzarist Russia, as in Persia, as in Fascist Italy. Many of us came from free countries where Jews were treated like citizens, where there was no persecution as from England, from the United States of America, from Canada, from the Argentine, from pre-war Germany, from Imperial Germany, from Soviet Russia, from France, Egypt and other countries. Why did they come? They did not come because they were persecuted; what is the common denominator which brought all these people whether from Nazi Germany or from England, whether from Yemen or from Egypt. That is what I want to tell you.

    The first thing which brought them over, all of them, was to escape from dependence and discrimination. I do not mean from anti-Semitism. There was a great deal of talk in your Commission about anti-Semitism and many of our people were asked to explain why is it. It is not for us. It is your baby, it is a Christian baby. It is for you Gentiles to explain why it is. Perhaps it would be necessary to set up a Jewish Commission, to make an enquiry of the Gentiles or perhaps a joint Jewish-Gentile Commission, one Chairman Jewish, one Chairman Gentile, to make an enquiry among leaders of the Church, teachers, educators, journalists, political parties as to what disease this is, what is the reason for it in the gentile world.

    continued

  45. @ CuriousAmerican:

    The Palestinians refused to concede Israel’s right to exist; and a large part of Israel – especially the settler class – refuse to acknowledge a right for Palestine to exist in Judea and Samaria.

    Maybe it was a higher power who sabotaged it. 😛

    “He Who dwells in Heaven laughs; the Lord mocks them.”

    “No Jew is at liberty to surrender the right of the Jewish Nation and the Land of Israel to exist. No Jewish body is sanctioned to do so. Even all the Jews alive today have no authority to yield any piece of land whatsoever. This right is reserved to the Jewish People throughout the generations. This right cannot be forfeited under any circumstances. Even if at some given time there will be those who declare that they are relinquishing this right, they have neither the power nor the authority to negate it for future generations. The Jewish Nation is neither obligated by nor responsible for any such waiver. Our right to this land, in its entirety, is enduring and eternal. And until the coming of the Redemption, we shall never yield this historic right.”

    David Ben-Gurion, First Prime Minister of Israel, speech to the 21st Zionist Congress, Basel 1937

    “Do not make a treaty with these nations… Do not allow them to reside in your land, since they may then make you sin to Me.”
    Shemot (Exodus) 23:32-33

  46. Concerning the Palestinian Authority, the poll confirmed frustration among media and politicians that the “Peace Process” is dead and buried. Only 22.5 percent of Jews in the poll believe there will be an agreement with the Palestinian Authority in the next few years.

    Let’s be honest. The Peace process was never alive.

    The Palestinians refused to concede Israel’s right to exist; and a large part of Israel – especially the settler class – refuse to acknowledge a right for Palestine to exist in Judea and Samaria.

    Both were intent on sabotaging it.