Israel Matzav

The Council of Secular Sages

Who are these secular messianists crying about “religious fascism” while they close their eyes to Israeli soldiers who have the honor of being pelted weekly with stones near Naalin, a Palestinian town near Ramallah?

Who are these Hellenistic Jews who claim that “hareidim don’t serve in the IDF” while they grant the same immunity to Israeli Arabs and liberal draft-dodgers - and are now making it impossible for the hareidim who do enlist to serve without abrogating religious customs?

Who are these Tel-Avivian pacifists saying that a cadet who cannot want to hear female singing for religious reasons will not be an officer in the IDF and a neighborhood that features separate sidewalks for women shall lose its municipal services?

This kind of apocalyptic frenzy began after the victories of the political and religious right-wing parties in the 1977.

Shulamit Aloni, the feminist goddess of the Citizen’s Rights Movement, then said that democracy that produced such election was deficient and predicted a reign of “Jewish fascism”.

Novelist Amos Oz called on fellow “sane” Zionists to thwart the nefarious “tribalist” regime.

Others talked about athe “black national-religious Khomeinism”.

They began to refer to the Jews living in Judea and Samaria by the term pinned by their enemies, “settlers” (mitnahalim), instead by the term “residents” (toshavim or mityashvim in Hebrew).

Hareidim got even better labels, such as "parasites", "leeches" and "penguins" to send to "work camps" or "gulags" for reeducation and rehabilitation, while others wouldn't mind seeing mass arrests.

In 1978 the novelist A.B. Yehoshua asked to not withdraw the settlers inside pre-1967 lines: “We should encourage them to settle as much as possible beyond the Green Line, so when the longed-for peace comes and we are liberated from the territories, we will also be freed of the settlers. Let them go and live in Sebastia, in Upper and Lower Horon (in Samaria), and if possible let them also go to Bashan and Gilead (in Jordan) ...”. (Ha’aretz, January 23, 1976).

Are these the pragmatists who knew better how to reshape the Middle East? Are these the humanistic preachers of the “normality” of being a “nation like all the other nations”?

Are these the self-elected keepers of the cosmic conscience who would never use violence to promote their good causes?

Are these the Aristotelian rationalists who embodied the war on political extremism, religious rigidity and cultural intolerance?

Is this the Council of Secular Sages?

Labels: Haredim, secular revolution

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:22 PM