How Israel must fight violent Jewish extremists

The key lesson of the fight against violent Islamism must be applied to Jewish radicals too: Insider religious and right-wing Jewish voices are key to dissuading their descent into violence.

ed note–First things first–Islam is not inherently violent, so for the author to equate it with Jewish extremism is like comparing goldfish to sharks. Within Islam, the only prescription for violence exists within the context of self-defense and then once said conflict has ended, so too must that self-defense-based violence end as well.

Judaism on the other hand IS inherently violent, and not merely in the context of self-defense like Islam, but rather in an offensive manner, i.e. invasion, conquest, theft, etc. No other religion commands its followers to murder men, women, and children en masse as does Judaism, the only possible exception being those barbaric religions that engage in ritualistic human sacrifice in appeasing the violent gods to which said religions are devoted.

Israel can’t ‘fight violent Jewish extremists’, for the simple reason that Israel–being after all the ‘Jewish state’ as she is fond of reminding everyone on a daily basis–uses as the operating system, both for her identity for and all her actions, Judaism, which is not as much the ‘state religion’ as it is the beating heart of the entire paradigm.

And Judaism, as is clearly spelled out in black and white, is Extremism, Inc. It is the ultimate my way or the hi-way/all or nothing mentality that sees the world in 2 colors–Jewish and non-Jewish, along with the prescription for religiously-induced/religiously-mandated violence–whether it is beating up non-Jews, spitting in the faces of Christians or launching murderous assaults on Gaza that massacre thousands, to wit–

‘When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are to possess and casts out the many peoples living there, you shall then slaughter them all and utterly destroy them…You shall save nothing alive that breathes…You shall make no agreements with them nor show them any mercy. You shall destroy their altars, break down their images, cut down their groves and burn their graven images with fire. For you are a holy people unto the LORD thy God and He has chosen you to be a special people above all others upon the face of the earth…”–Book of Deuteronomy

‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly…’ –Leviticus 25:44-46)

‘Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you…Your gates will always stand open, day and night, so that people may bring you the wealth of their nations, and their kings led in triumphal procession, for the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish; it will be utterly destroyed.’–Isaiah 60:10-12

etc, etc, etc…

Therefore, separating Israel from the type of violence that is now making its way into the news all over the world on a daily basis is an IMPOSSIBILITY, as long as Israel remains ‘the Jewish state’ where Judaism functions as the operating system of all that the ‘Jewish state’ does. All other discussions therefore, such as the one included here, are mere noise and done in the interests of creating the illusion that there can be a ‘Jewish’ state without all the religiously-mandated Jewish violence that must by the very nature of the situation exist.

In other words, ‘by way of deception, we shall make war’ (yet again) on the minds of Gentiledom.

Haaretz

After nearly a year in administrative detention, Israel released a Jewish extremist last week held following the 2015 Duma arson, in which a Palestinian infant and his parents were murdered. Meir Ettinger, who will spend three months under house arrest, leads “The Revolt,” a group advocating violence to bring about the end of the Jewish state to be replaced by a “Jewish kingdom.”

This ideology has deep roots in Ettinger’s own family. The 24-year-old is the grandson of far-right radical Rabbi Meir Kahane, who also advocated using violence to expel Arabs from Greater Israel. Kach, the hardline party Kahane established in 1971, was banned along with an offshoot “Kahane Chai” (Hebrew for “Kahane Lives”) in 1994, one month after Baruch Goldstein, a Kach supporter, massacred 29 Palestinians at prayer in Hebron. The U.S. added Kach to its terror list that year.

But the ideology of Kahane, assassinated in his native New York in 1990, did not disappear with those bans. Today, his legacy echoes in the Israeli far-right clarion call “Kahane tzadak” (“Kahane was right”), a phrase often reproduced in ‘price tag’ graffiti and on the lips of far-right protesters. And its ripples can be felt in the likes of Lehava, the Israeli extremist group led by another Kahanist, Rabbi Bentzi Gopstein.

In recent weeks, the Anti-Defamation League, in an unusual step, has entered the fray, urging Israel’s attorney general to take action against Lehava’s “hateful discourse,” which it said harms Israel abroad and at home. The ADL called “to draw a clear red line before this phenomenon that is so dangerous to Israel’s society and democracy.” The Israel Religious Action Center alsolaunched a petition to outlaw Lehava. “Jewish terror is not created out of thin air,” the petition stated. “It is fueled by ideological incitement and hatred that is spread by radical rabbis like Bentzi Gopstein. It is backed up by activities organized and executed by extremist hate groups like Lehava.”

Lehava, meaning “flame” in Hebrew, is also an acronym for “Preventing Assimilation in the Holy Land.” Founded in 2009, the anti-miscegenation group is vehemently anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Christian, and its members have been known to use violence. Lehava’s activities range from publicity stunts bordering on the risible — such as urging supermodel Bar Refaeli to break up with her gentile boyfriend, Leonardo di Caprio — to the more sinister. In 2015, its membersprotested the wedding of a Jew and a Muslim shouting “Death to Arabs.” In November 2014, members of the group set fire to a Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem. They spray-painted “Kahane was right” and “there’s no coexisting with cancer” on the walls of the building.

Legal action would send a clear formal message that there is no place for Lehava’s hateful incitement in Israel. After a number of failed attempts in recent years to take such action against the group, it would also show Gopstein — who has branded Christians “blood-sucking vampires” and has called on followers to continue “Kahane’s way” — that words have consequences. It would show him he cannot act with impunity.

But this is the very least a democracy can and should do in the face of incitement to violence. The endurance of the ideas of Kahane and his ilk indicates that banning a group like Lehava is not enough. To prevent future generations of Jews adopting such a worldview, we must engage with — and directly challenge — the ideas behind it, from the inside.

Last year, Gopstein was caught on tape justifying burning churches based on the religious teachings of the revered 12th century commentator Maimonides. What was also caught on that tape was a room filled with other rabbis responding with absolute incredulity to his shocking statements. When the tapes were made public, some dismissed Gopstein’s assertion as “halakhic nonsense” and against Jewish values.

Research by the Centre on Religion & Geopolitics (where I work) shows that every ideological violent extremism has its non-violent fellow travelers. And they have the responsibility to speak out. Their insider status means they have unique persuasive power and authority — to stop activists taking a violent path.

In a recent study we found that out of 100 prominent jihadis, 51 per cent had links to non-violent Islamist movements. Jihad and the various currents of Jewish extremism are not one and the same, but much has been written about the lessons Israel can learnfrom how other countries deal with Islamist extremism.

We need to hear more voices from within the Jewish religious world speaking up against toxic Jewish extremist ideas. After Orthodox extremist Yigal Amir assassinated former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun of the Gush Emunim settlement bloc condemned rabbis he believed hadgiven religious sanction to the murder.

But we need more than action after the fact. We also need initiatives that challenge the ideology and provide alternatives. The 2006 “Yeh Hum Naheem” (This is Not Us) campaign in terror-riddled Pakistan rallied millions to reinforce the distance between mainstream Islam and extremism. Closer to home, Tag Meir has been responding to Jewish price tag attacks with its focus on the moreuniversalist side of Jewish valuessince 2011.

Racist and extremist language has entered the Israeli mainstream, and is tolerated too often. Examples include calling for the boycott of Arab businesses, as the new defense minister Avigdor Lieberman did during the 2014 Gaza war, or for the segregation of Jewish and Arab women in maternity wards as a lawmaker did in April. Two-thirds of Israel’s Orthodox public support the idea of expelling Arabs, according to a recent poll. It’s therefore essential that many of the voices pushing back against the nexus of right-wing politics and religiously-inspired violence come from the political and religious right, from which Lehava draws its support.

Far-right movements will likely always exist. In Israel, amid the tension between Jewish identity and liberal democracy, room has been given to racist and ultranationalist ideas with a religious justification. Add to that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Lehava, and the other standouts of Israel’s Jewish extremist landscape, are partly a symptom of the decades-long hostilities between Arabs and Jews.

These are radical, fringe movements. Still, as the Goldstein massacre, Rabin’s assassination, and more recent incidents like the Duma arson show, they can cause enormous damage. They undermine fragile Jewish-Arab relations and the ever-distant prospects for peace and coexistence.

The test is how far these ideas seep into mainstream discourse. Lehava’s members burnt down a Jewish-Arab school is because they hated everything it stood for. Petitions by anti-incitement groups inside and outside Israel are a welcome source of pressure for change, not least institutionally, but external players will have a limited effect on those at most risk of adopting violent ideologies.

A climate of tolerance for Jewish extremist ideas in society in general, and within the religious and cultural circles closest to known activists and their surrogates, gives them room to grow. To curb their growth and guard against future violence, we all must challenge them.