Sunday, February 05, 2006
2/05/2006 11:40:00 AM | 
Posted by
JoeSettler
Why do they hate us (the Settlers) so?
This question bothers me. After all, we’re not like the Chareidim - we serve in the army, we work, we pay taxes.
They once called us the best soldiers and the best citizens. There are more religious-settler officers and elite combat soldiers in the army than there are secular ones. A mere 8000 Gazan Jewish settlers made up some 20% of Israel’s agricultural exports. We are certainly doing more than our share for the State of Israel than the average secular Israeli.
Yet suddenly we find ourselves demonized. We’re pariahs, hated, and criticized, even beaten and banished. We’re treated in ways that even the most hated Chareidi in Israel has never experienced.
It’s all too easy to say the reason is that we stand in the way of the Israeli panacea.
We settlers are ‘obstacles to peace’. If only we weren’t here, the Arabs would either accept or we could unilaterally implement a two-state solution. We dastardly settlers are keeping the country at war. Even though a two-state solution could be (and actually has been) implemented right now, without removing a single settler.
And on the simplest level, there is no doubt that that has been the explicit message to Joe Israeli - whether that settler was from Hebron or the Golan Heights.
It’s all too easy to say that we succeeded too well and they are jealous. We stole their army from them. We built wonderful communities. We are tax-paying professionals and business leaders. Our kids don’t beat their teachers or stab their fellow club-goers.
But that too is far too easy and unsatisfactory an answer.
I think we need to look deeper.
We need to examine the battle-cry of the Left.
They desire to be a nation like every other. They desire to assimilate and remove the vestige of Jewishness from the appendage of their humanity.
In Germany, the battle cry of the Reform was “Be a Jew at home, and a man on the street”.
Reform Judaism certainly never succeeded at being Jews at home, and when the man on the street shoved them into the gas chambers they were shocked at the affront. “But we are men just like you”, they cried, while the world indicated otherwise.
As Meretz and Shinui lead the new struggle against Judaism in their blinding desire for national assimilation they look at those who are preventing that goal.
In pre-Nazi Germany, it was the religious who prevented the Jews complete assimilation and disappearance into Germany’s superior culture, similarly, for many years in Israel it was the Chareidim.
Those Chareidim refused to become “New Jews”. They refused to shuck off their old traditions and quaint customs. They refused to participate in Israeli society and accept the overt and covert attempts to turn their community into ‘New Jews’- like the secular Left forcibly did to the Yemenite immigrants and other Sephardic communities.
And so that is why they really became hated.
Numerically, there are about as many secular Jews as there are Chareidi Jews who don’t serve in the army, and we won’t even discuss the percentages of other Israeli minorities who do absolutely no national service for the country, far unlike the Chareidim who open and run national charities and aid centers that serve the entire Israeli population, Jew and Arab alike.
And alas for the poor secular Jew desiring to integrate, assimilate, disappear, Chozrim B’tshuva, secular Jews returning to Judaism are still growing more than ever. And worse, many are becoming hated Chareidim.
So now we turn to a new front, the Religion of Peace (and Assimilation).
After Nazi Germany, what could possibly be more indicative that we have properly and completely assimilated than if no one was trying to kill us anymore?
And who more than anyone else is preventing that Messianic Peace from arriving? Hamas? Syria? Iran? Egypt? The Palestinians?
No, of course not. The Arabs are simply reacting to our Jewishness. If we were the same like them, quietly eating Hummus in Damascus, then we too would be accepted.
Humanity understands why we “expropriated” Tel Aviv and Haifa.
After the Holocaust we needed it to survive (so we can assimilate properly on a national level). The Arab would understand and accept that too, if only someone didn’t stand in the way of their particular nationalistic aspirations.
Who is that someone?
Certainly it’s not the Israeli living in a former Arab home in Yafo. Of course it’s not.
It’s none other than the Settler moving on to a barren hilltop.
The secular left cannot accept that the Arab speaks the truth when he says they want “all of Palestine”. After all, the secular, humanistic Israeli understands compromise and the Arab obviously would too, if only, only those pesky obstacles to peace weren’t there.
And worse, those Settlers aren’t just obstacles to peace; they are religious obstacles to peace, just like the Chareidim. Double whammy.
And so they must be removed, debased, destroyed, and deported.
As long as a single settler stands on land that the secular Left chose to not “expropriate” for their post-Holocaust needs there can’t be peace.
Don’t confuse them with the facts that the Arab won’t be satisfied with everything over the Green Line (unless it means both sides), for unlike the secular Israeli’s Religion where the Green Line is Holy, the Arabs maintain no such confusion.
For if it disagrees with their religion of Peace and Assimilation then it can’t be true.
So the Settlers are hated. Not because we ‘cause them more reserve service’, and not because we are preventing the Arabs from making peace with us, and not even because we make them ‘interact’ with the Arabs, and certainly not because we are against the ‘rule of law’ (as if they were actually big upholders of it).
No, we are hated, because they are completely right, it is we religious settlers who are preventing the national assimilation of the Jewish people.
If that makes me hated, I can live with it.
Am Yisrael Chai.
This question bothers me. After all, we’re not like the Chareidim - we serve in the army, we work, we pay taxes.
They once called us the best soldiers and the best citizens. There are more religious-settler officers and elite combat soldiers in the army than there are secular ones. A mere 8000 Gazan Jewish settlers made up some 20% of Israel’s agricultural exports. We are certainly doing more than our share for the State of Israel than the average secular Israeli.
Yet suddenly we find ourselves demonized. We’re pariahs, hated, and criticized, even beaten and banished. We’re treated in ways that even the most hated Chareidi in Israel has never experienced.
It’s all too easy to say the reason is that we stand in the way of the Israeli panacea.
We settlers are ‘obstacles to peace’. If only we weren’t here, the Arabs would either accept or we could unilaterally implement a two-state solution. We dastardly settlers are keeping the country at war. Even though a two-state solution could be (and actually has been) implemented right now, without removing a single settler.
And on the simplest level, there is no doubt that that has been the explicit message to Joe Israeli - whether that settler was from Hebron or the Golan Heights.
It’s all too easy to say that we succeeded too well and they are jealous. We stole their army from them. We built wonderful communities. We are tax-paying professionals and business leaders. Our kids don’t beat their teachers or stab their fellow club-goers.
But that too is far too easy and unsatisfactory an answer.
I think we need to look deeper.
We need to examine the battle-cry of the Left.
They desire to be a nation like every other. They desire to assimilate and remove the vestige of Jewishness from the appendage of their humanity.
In Germany, the battle cry of the Reform was “Be a Jew at home, and a man on the street”.
Reform Judaism certainly never succeeded at being Jews at home, and when the man on the street shoved them into the gas chambers they were shocked at the affront. “But we are men just like you”, they cried, while the world indicated otherwise.
As Meretz and Shinui lead the new struggle against Judaism in their blinding desire for national assimilation they look at those who are preventing that goal.
In pre-Nazi Germany, it was the religious who prevented the Jews complete assimilation and disappearance into Germany’s superior culture, similarly, for many years in Israel it was the Chareidim.
Those Chareidim refused to become “New Jews”. They refused to shuck off their old traditions and quaint customs. They refused to participate in Israeli society and accept the overt and covert attempts to turn their community into ‘New Jews’- like the secular Left forcibly did to the Yemenite immigrants and other Sephardic communities.
And so that is why they really became hated.
Numerically, there are about as many secular Jews as there are Chareidi Jews who don’t serve in the army, and we won’t even discuss the percentages of other Israeli minorities who do absolutely no national service for the country, far unlike the Chareidim who open and run national charities and aid centers that serve the entire Israeli population, Jew and Arab alike.
And alas for the poor secular Jew desiring to integrate, assimilate, disappear, Chozrim B’tshuva, secular Jews returning to Judaism are still growing more than ever. And worse, many are becoming hated Chareidim.
So now we turn to a new front, the Religion of Peace (and Assimilation).
After Nazi Germany, what could possibly be more indicative that we have properly and completely assimilated than if no one was trying to kill us anymore?
And who more than anyone else is preventing that Messianic Peace from arriving? Hamas? Syria? Iran? Egypt? The Palestinians?
No, of course not. The Arabs are simply reacting to our Jewishness. If we were the same like them, quietly eating Hummus in Damascus, then we too would be accepted.
Humanity understands why we “expropriated” Tel Aviv and Haifa.
After the Holocaust we needed it to survive (so we can assimilate properly on a national level). The Arab would understand and accept that too, if only someone didn’t stand in the way of their particular nationalistic aspirations.
Who is that someone?
Certainly it’s not the Israeli living in a former Arab home in Yafo. Of course it’s not.
It’s none other than the Settler moving on to a barren hilltop.
The secular left cannot accept that the Arab speaks the truth when he says they want “all of Palestine”. After all, the secular, humanistic Israeli understands compromise and the Arab obviously would too, if only, only those pesky obstacles to peace weren’t there.
And worse, those Settlers aren’t just obstacles to peace; they are religious obstacles to peace, just like the Chareidim. Double whammy.
And so they must be removed, debased, destroyed, and deported.
As long as a single settler stands on land that the secular Left chose to not “expropriate” for their post-Holocaust needs there can’t be peace.
Don’t confuse them with the facts that the Arab won’t be satisfied with everything over the Green Line (unless it means both sides), for unlike the secular Israeli’s Religion where the Green Line is Holy, the Arabs maintain no such confusion.
For if it disagrees with their religion of Peace and Assimilation then it can’t be true.
So the Settlers are hated. Not because we ‘cause them more reserve service’, and not because we are preventing the Arabs from making peace with us, and not even because we make them ‘interact’ with the Arabs, and certainly not because we are against the ‘rule of law’ (as if they were actually big upholders of it).
No, we are hated, because they are completely right, it is we religious settlers who are preventing the national assimilation of the Jewish people.
If that makes me hated, I can live with it.
Am Yisrael Chai.
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13 comments:
Now Elchonon, that wasn't exactly the comment I meant for you to post on my site when I said to put up a crosslink by me.
tsk. tsk. tsk.
This is a similar bit that I wrote in response to an ostrich on Israel Insider...
'The restraint is over' for Roni Bar-On and friends. Ok, So what's good for the goose is good for the gander. What goes around comes around.
While Arabs build illegally all the time, Roni likes to beat Jewish girls sitting peacefully. No problem. The day is coming when the Jews will do the same...to Roni's house and family.
Easy...it's a demographics game. You idiots could have survived for a long time, even been loved by your fellow Jews. But now, you've crossed the line, just to show you can. There was nothing in it for you...nine homes, or people that want to live on a barren hill somewhere. For that you crossed the line?
Yes, because you hate proud Jews, because you are pathetic Jews, empty Jews. Therefore you loathe the proud Jew...therefore you send the horse and the goons...to protect you from your greatest enemy, your nightmare, your end...the proud Jew.
This is the last act of a desperate group of losers. They say rule of law, democracy...ok, when the Jews vote you out, you'll have to turn the keys over to the Supreme Court, the Army, the police...or the Jews will take it from you.
You don't have children, you have dogs, and cats, and 'lovers,' and fashions, and tattoos, and piercings. Meanwhile, the Jews have 14-year-old girls that can withstand police beatings, from brawny, sick goons, who wouldn't last 30 seconds in a fight with a man. The Jews get married, raise their kids on the facts of a continuous 3000 year 'occupation' of Israel, real ethics, real morality, real life.
And this is why you will lose...you have absolutely nothing to pass on to no one. 'Be a good person.' 'Enjoy life.' 'Explore yourself.' 'Judaism is a guilt trip, nonsense, I don't really consider myself Jewish...more Israeli...or a citizen of the world.' You have nothing, you are going nowhere, and you won't have to be crushed, because you will disappear like a bad odor in the wind.
Heymish
I agree with everything you said (I actually wrote something similar not too long ago).
Yet, it's the price one pays to be observant in a country that so desperately wants to be like the goyim.
excellent piece Joe.
Cant wait to see it in print!!!
J.
I was told it is going to be on the Arutz-7 site and printed in the "Jewish Press" in the US.
are u saying joe, that the settler is the epitomical (was that legal?) jew? and thus the most hated?
i am not being sarcastic. i plan on, gd willing, starting a new settlement myself :)
Whenever one says that a certain type of person is a good Jew, another type of person tends to get upset because you are thereby implying that they aren't a good Jew.
Perhaps they are mistaking the word Jew and Human, or perhaps they simply don't understand what it means to be a good Jew.
I would definitely say that the settler movement today is one of those groups of people that clearly epitomizes the definition of a good Jew.
i agree completely
(i must be tired)
This is excellent.
great piece.But so sad.Reminds me of the time of the Neviim crying out.Also of the misyavnim.'dei lechachima berimeza.'
joe,
since sinat chinam was and is at the source of the churban; how can ahavat yisrael be increased? someone on arutz, (you?) made the point that the religious must make it clear that all the jews are part of the solution, not just the observant. i haven't seen(which doesn't mean it isn't there) a mass movement consistently of the relgious to truly reach out to transform the secular. maybe if not into religous, at least into religous minded/identified etc. the main problem is education and mis-information. it is wrong for the relgious to write off the secular.
i think the solution the soul-ution rests in relgious outreach to all jews. not to make them necessarily relgious, but to kindle the pintele yid. when secular people feel no pressure, but a sincere invitation to learn and explore, then they will come.
jewish people must use our ingenuity and creativity and passion to help bring the secular into the spiritual/relgious mindset thru education and warm outreach/kiruv.
and those relgious who despise/disdain the secular are not helping matters at all.
your thoughts? i think this should be a banner on arutz7. the more we as jews unite the more power min hashamayim we have,and the less power the enemies have. amen.
I think they are called Chabbad.
it's more than chabad, who are great. it's a combined effort of all conscious yehudim, each in their own way.
this is what it will take to rebuild the bes mikdash within our souls and on earth. b'ezrat H'
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