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| The settler pogrom in Huwara earlier this year (The Guardian) |
President Joe Biden on Wednesday spoke out against retaliatory attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. He also said he was redoubling his commitment to working on a two-state solution to end the decades long Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Biden said the attacks by settlers amounted to “pouring gasoline” on the already burning fires in the Middle East since the Hamas attack.
“It has to stop, and it has to stop now,” Biden said at the start of a news conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was being honored with a state visit to Washington.
Settler violence against Palestinians has intensified since the Hamas attack, and Palestinians have been killed by settlers, according to Palestinian authorities. Rights groups say settlers have torched cars and attacked several small Bedouin communities, forcing them to evacuate to other areas.
The West Bank Protection Consortium, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations and donor countries, including the European Union, says hundreds of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced in the West Bank due to settler violence since Oct. 7. That’s in addition to over 1,100 displaced since 2022.
Deadly violence has been surging in the West Bank as the Israeli military pursues Palestinian militants in the aftermath of the Hamas attack from Gaza.
Here’s the thing. These reports are coming out of organizations and media that are not necessarily friendly to Israel (to say the least). So they should be taken with a grain of salt. And even if true, it might be exaggerated. Or there might be some sort of explanation that would justify what they did. For example if it was done in self defense. I do not know the circumstances.
But if, as I suspect might be the case, these are retaliatory acts of revenge in the aftermath of the Hamas attack by ‘price tag’ type settlers, then I disagree with the President. It is not enough to tell them, ‘It has to stop, and it has to stop now’.
It’s not only immoral, in a time of war it amounts to treason. They are tampering with the very existence of the Jewish state by undermining world support. Which Israel needs now more than ever. These violent settlers need to be tried in a court of law and if found guilty, spend the rest of their miserable lives in prison. Religious settler extremism like this needs to be destroyed as a movement. They must no longer be allowed to practice their evil ways. Which ironically, many of them believe are based on the Torah. The Israeli government should make it illegal for people like this to live anywhere on the West Bank. With serious jail time for those who try.
A word about Biden’s ‘two state solution’ comment. As I have said many times. I am in favor of this option in theory. But not as things stand now – even if Hamas is defeated. Until such time that the Palestinian leadership condemns terrorists instead of financially rewarding their families and stops naming streets after them, there is no way there can be a Palestinian state along side Israel. And until such time that Palestinian mothers stop celebrating successful terrorist attacks by passing out candy in the streets to their little children, there can be no Palestinian state.
Palestinians have demonstrated by their actions that they have no interest in getting along with us. Their leaders can scream ‘two state solution’ all day long. But they cannot be trusted as long as they consider their terrorists to be martyrs for their cause. A cause that will never accept Jews living on any part of ‘their land’ if they can help it. And they consider ‘their land’ to extend from the river to the sea - i.e, all of Eretz Yisroel. Unfortunately I do not see that attitude changing any time soon.
So much for the bad news. There is good news to report. As noted here recently, there has been an increase in Charedi army enlistment. I had suggested that this would not change the Charedi religious paradigm against army service for Charedi youth. That despite the current increase in Charedi enlistment - there is no such thing as a grass roots movement that can change their version of ‘Daas Torah’.
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| Screenshot of Rabbi Rami Ravad, a Charedi recruiter with R' Chaim Kanievsky |
Charedim believe that in the merit of their Torah study they are doing their part in the war effort. And that even so there are a lot of mainstream Charedim that have been enlisting. She interviewed one Chasidic fellow from Bet Shemesh who has enlisted and asked him why he made that decision.
He answered in a way that I would have expected anyone with any kind of moral compass would: How could he not join the army under these circumstances? How could he let others put their lives on the line while he sits safely with his family? When asked how this would effect his wife and very young children he answered that it would be hard on them but that he had the full support of his wife.
This fellow did not appear to be some sort of outlier. He seemed pretty mainstream. Some one that would not go against his Daas Torah. Which to me means that there is a glimmer of hope that there will indeed be a change of attitude about army service in the future. That as a result of current conditions the Charedi leadership finally realizes that army service is not some sort of government social engineering tool. And that the primary purpose of the military is to protect Jewish lives and to fight mortal enemies in times of war.
That being said I don’t think this will change the primary focus of the Charedi world to be on Torah study. That will still ne number one. They will still be guiding Charedi youth to do that. But my hope is that those Charedim that choose to serve in the army will no longer be discouraged. Especially if they are accommodated in Nachal Charedi type units.
This could foreshadow a new and more positive relationship. And it may even encourage more secular Jews to give observant Judaism a second look. You never know.