Right-Wing Israelis Threatens To Destroy Their Country
BY SAM FIELDS
Guest Columnist
There is a group in Israel that threatens to destroy the homeland of the Jewish people by alienating the rest of the world, including many American Jews.
They are the fanatics who wave the flag and the Bible to get their message out.
They are paranoid about all who oppose them. It’s a paranoia that needs to create a world where the only acceptable view is: “It’s us and god against the world.
The more they isolate and alienate friends, the more they feel righteous.
What I am talking about are the Haradi (ultra religious Jews)and their political allies in the rightwing Likud Party of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
Large numbers of Haradi men don’t work, pay taxes, join the army or get a conventional education. They instead spend their days in yeshivas reading the Torah and debating each other over pointless and insipid ideas in the Bible and it’s companion commentary found in the Talmud.
Haradi religiosity and Likud expansionism fit together like bagels and lox.
Bolstered by Biblical bobe mayse, (grandma‘s legends) Likud is a collection of ultra-right-wingers, some whose goal appears to be the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank.
Like all expansionists they rationalize their actions as if they were the victims. In this case they bleat the portions of the Bible that not merely defend Israel, but to offer a moral justification to push out all the Arabs.
Sadly their extremism has infected the Jewish community in America.
The religious fanatics have taken over what, until recent times, was the domain of secular Jews including some Jewish Federations.
This kind of rightwing Zionism threatens to destroy the long term support of Disapora Jews for Israel.
Peter Beinhart, an Orthodox Jew, published an article in May in the New York Review of Books. He detailed a growing schism between Israel and the younger generation of Diaspora Jews.
Citing what he called Israel’s unabated nationalism and growing intolerance, many American Jews under 40 show little or no support for the existence of Israel. In April the student Senate at Brandeis University, a Jewish secular institution, refused to pass a resolution supporting the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel!
In Israel it is even worse–but in the opposite direction. With the backing of the Likudniks, the Haradi crazies have enforced gender segregation. Although much of Israel is secular and a majority didn’t vote for the Likud, the government is enforcing the separation of males and females in public places.
On many public bus routes, females are forced to sit in a special section reserved for them. It remind me of the treatement of the black in Birmingham, circa 1955.
Jewish women who try to pray at the Wailing Wall have been arrested.
There are disputes in other important matters. The government has been leaning towards allowing the strict Orthodox religious leaders decide who is a Jew, annoying American conservatives and reform Jews.
I would argue that there is at most a tiny sliver of support among American Jews for imposing such strict religious tenants.
There is more.
That same Beinhart article cites surveys in Israel that show 53% of Israeli youth would deny Arabs the right to be in the Knesset.
Make no bones about it. This is a dangerous path for Israel. Israel should not be a nation whose response to the totalitarianism of its enemies is to create a hometown variety.
A couple of years ago I was rebuked for referring to some intolerent Haradi as Taliban Lite.
I stand corrected. There is nothing “lite about them. The only difference between Taliban Islamo-fascism and Haradi Judeo-fascism is opportunity.
And Likud is giving the extremist elements of the Haradi the green light.
August 13th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Sam Fields forgets that Israel has a democratically elected government. Would he overthrow the government to please some American Jews, who don’t live there and never will?
August 13th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
I personally think we should outlaw all religion.
Or if that is too much then go with this idea.
If you are going to have an imaginary friend, go with one with much less angst. I suggest Papa Smurf.
August 13th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Fields is right. Read this article
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-01/israel-prosperity-seen-unsustainable-as-haredim-refuse-to-work.html
August 14th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Sam
This group sounds awfully similar to some right wing christian groups here in the good old US of A
August 14th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
MOSHE,
I DON’T WANT TO OVERTHROW OR SUPPORT THEM.
IF BEING AN ELECTED GOVERNMENT AUTOMATICALL MEANT AMERICAN SUPPORT WE WOULD BE BACKING CHAVEZ AND HITLER
August 14th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
let’s hope that the right-wing in Israel and the US come up with someone who can pull off a “Nixon-goes-to-China” and find a way to peace in the Mideast….and immigration here
August 14th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Fields,
Your piece is narrowminded and over the top. You’ve never been there. Israelis fight. But they understand each other and get along. There’d probably be less strife with the Muslims if so-called wanna-be do-gooder pompous ignoramuses such as yourself would leave the region to its own doings. The road to hell is paved with knowitalls like Sam Fields.
August 15th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
DEAR NARROW
I WOULD LOVE TO LEAVE THEM ALONE. I WOULD LOVE THEM TO LEAVE US ALONE.
SO I ASSUME I CAN COUNT ON YOU TO TELL CONGRESS TO QUIT SENDING THEM THE FOREIGN AID THEY AND THEIR AIPAC MINIONS ARE ALWAYS WHINING FOR.
August 15th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
DEAR RUMPUS–THAT ARTICLE WAS AN EYEOPENER