IDF Rabbis Urge Ethnic Cleansing
At last night’s press conference, Barack Obama made some news by conceding that the rise of a Netanyahu-Lieberman administration in Israel was not making the prospects for peace any better. That’s true enough, but it’s worth recalling that it’s not as if the previous Kadima-Labor government was really going the extra mile to show its commitment to a just resolution of the problem. The rise of the far-right in electoral politics reflects a general—and quite ugly—rightward turn in Israel more generally. Take this story, for example:
In testimony reported by Israeli news media and in interviews with The Times, Gaza veterans said rabbis advised army units to show the enemy no mercy and called for resettlement of the Palestinian enclave by Jews.
“The rabbis were all over, in every unit,” said Yehuda Shaul, a retired army officer whose human rights group, Breaking the Silence, has taken testimony from dozens of Gaza veterans. “It was quite well organized.”
The army, which conscripts almost every Israeli Jew at 18, has been dominated for most of its history by secular officers. But over the last 15 years, as secular Israelis have soured on the occupation of Palestinian territory, religious nationalists have taken over senior positions in elite combat brigades.
With them have come hundreds of volunteer rabbis, who teach at pre-military academies for religious youths and serve side by side with the troops.
Needless to say, the parallel growth in strength of the religious nationalists of Hamas doesn’t help matters either. Indeed, these two groups have been in a mutually beneficial embrace, both rising to power in their respective societies as both sink further into the mire. My hope would be that we can turn this trend around, but it may not be possible and the United States might have to ask itself what kind of relationship it can have with a country where this sort of doctrine is put forward in official settings.
52 Responses to “IDF Rabbis Urge Ethnic Cleansing”
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March 25th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
How do you say “madrassa” in Hebrew?
March 25th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
цитаты за сегодня…
That’s true enough, but it’s worth recalling that it’s not as if the previous Kadima-Labor government was really going the extra mile[...]…
March 25th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I think you say shanda.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
You say schule. Which means school, which is what Madrassa means.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Wow. For my own sanity, I’m just going to assume that this story is overblown.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
You’d think an article called “IDF Rabbis Urge Ethnic Cleansing” would contain at least one piece of evidence of that happening. But then you’d soon find out that you were just the victim of a sensationalist, anti-Semitic, propagandist.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Matthew,
Thanks for your thoughts. I made a very similar observation yesterday, and I stressed the role of the mechinot in forming the ideological perspectives of the future young recruits, both religious and secular, as well as the apparent continued involvement of the mechinot post-training.
I am a little concerned about your use of the phrase “ethnic cleansing”. I would argue that it should refer to the elimination of an ethnic group as an end in itself, not the means to achieving complete sovereignty of a geographic region (even if the pursuit of this region is motivated by principles of a nationalistic political theology).
P. Langdale Hough
March 25th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Have you ever heard the story about the scorpion and the turtle?
March 25th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Are the IDF soldiers quoted saying that anti-Semitic, too?
Lemme guess: self-hating, right?
March 25th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
@SomeCallMeTim — that’s been exactly my policy for the last six months or so. Don’t need the grief.
And yet I can feel my attitude toward Israel shifting. A year ago I felt they were basically an ally — however complicated their relationship with the Palestinians.
Now I’m really beginning to view Israel as I once viewed South Africa.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
It’s a catch-22: without this, you’ll have more religious Jews taking the yeshiva exemption from service, which in turn means that secular Israeli conscripts end up doing the patrolling and shooting on behalf of the ultranationalists and religious nutcases.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I would argue that it should refer to the elimination of an ethnic group as an end in itself, not the means to achieving complete sovereignty of a geographic region
I disagree. The term for the former is “genocide.” Ethnic cleansing is the elimination of an ethnic group or groups from a defined area.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Accusation of anti-0Semitism in 3…2…1…oh. Too late.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Re: joe from Lowell
I was too quick to comment. I agree, thank you for the clarification.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
You’re an idiot – your point is well taken. Now, if I were really an idiot, would I admit that? Also, I think you probably see my point too. Because, you’re an idiot, you’re not really an idiot either. Perhaps just a little bit of a pedantic asshole.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Like this?
March 25th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Because, you’re an idiot, you’re not really an idiot either. Perhaps just a little bit of a pedantic asshole.
Hana Mana Ganda
Hana Mana Ganda
We translate for you.
Hana means what mana means.
And ganda means that too.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
P. Langdale Hough: Wow. I can’t believe someone wrote a comment like this in a post on Israel. Thanks.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I have lately been telling all my liberal Jewish friends that they really need to start asking themselves if the current Israeli leaders and political climate is as bad and dangerous as the one we just defeated.
I just don’t understand how Jews could ever even come close to embracing fascism, and it makes me so incredibly sad. They really seem to be sacrificing their own humanity and decency, which in my mind means they have already lost.
March 25th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
The words “called for resettlement of the Palestinian enclave by Jews” means the return of Jews to the settlements in gaza that were abandoned. These settlements included businesses that employed local Gazan Arabs that were otherwise unemployed.
To call this “ethnic cleansing” is preposterous and nothing more than misusing words for the purpose of Israel (Jew) bashing!
March 25th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Hmm, I wonder how many other people have gone my particular route – from enthusiastic supporters of Israel, buying into every bit of propaganda (fictional – Leon Uris, to cite only one example – and ostensibly non-fictional), to reluctantly concluding that a two state solution will not work, and that Israel as currently constituted can not continue to exist.
The only solution at this point is a single state with full voting rights for all inhabitants, as well as a full right of return for all refugees & their descendants. Along with, of course, a completely new, secular, constitution.
I have no illusions where that will likely lead (though I hope it will lead to voluntary emigrations rather than forced emigration, and who knows, cynic that I am, maybe human nature will surprise me), but Israel has blown it’s opportunity for a resolution that, however imperfect, would have allowed it to maintain a uniquely Jewish State in the a portion of the area known variously as Israel and Palestine.
Of course, the irony is that the Likudniks have been saying for years that it was “us or them.” What they failed to realize is that, when forced to choose, most people will not continue to support an apartheid (at best!) state.
March 25th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I agree that this is disgusting. And there was clearly a genuine problem of right-wing rabbis indoctrinating IDF troops before the operation. Moreover, it’s reasonable to assume that this gross indoctrination led to some of the unacceptable behavior by troops during the operation. On the other hand we don’t know how many of these rabbis actually called for resettling Gaza with Jews.
Nevertheless, Yglesias’s formulation here of the “parallel growth” of religious nationalism in Israel with Hamas is, as usual, overdrawn. Religious nationalism is a force in Israel. It doesn’t get anywhere near 50% of the vote, let alone a majority as Hamas did in the disastrous Palestinian elections of a few years back. Nor, this filthy language aside, has it engaged in the kinds of activity that Hamas has. For example, settlements notwithstanding, it hasn’t engaged in a civil war with the Israeli government resulting in the formation of a separate government over part of the country.
Finally, let’s see what the IDF and the Israeli government do about this. Of course, nothing will prevent Yglesias from hysterically hyperventilating about the worst possible hypothetical outcome, permitting him to view Israel in the worst possible light, his professions of “hope” to the contrary being basically a disingenuous trope allowing him to vent about something that hasn’t happened.
By the way, the US has had some difficulties with overly heavy-handed Christian fundamentalist influence in the US Air Force and specifically at the Air Force Academy — leading to complaints by, among others, Jewish veterans –which had to be addressed by political leadership within the Defense Department.
March 25th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Evidently t-shirts that joke about shooting pregnant Palestinian woman are becoming popular in the IDF also. Check this out.
Israel’s military condemned soldiers for wearing T-shirts of a pregnant woman in a rifle’s cross-hairs with the slogan “1 Shot 2 Kills,” and another of a gun-toting child with the words, “The smaller they are, the harder it is.”
At least the commanders realize they’ve got a problem on their hands.
March 25th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
LarryM, where you are is approximately where I’ve been for the last 5 or 6 years or so. It took Europe 2 World Wars, the rise of fascism, and tens of millions of dead to finally be sick enough of the consequences of Land/People/State nationalism to try to move beyond that ideology. They’ve spent over 60 years trying to dig themselves out from the rubble they brought down on their own heads, simultaneously building and strengthening international institutions across their borders, and relaxing suppression of minority identities within them. I hope Israelis have a chance to do the same.
March 25th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Oh, OK. Can you “translate” these for me, too?
…
Yep. No ethnic cleansing here.
March 25th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Because we know that Hamas does not engage in religious indoctrination or call for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Palestine so they must be the good guys, right? Pathetic.
Why is Israel held to such a high and different standard? They are to be commended for maintaining a vigorous democracy in a sea of tyranny. I doubt the US would have been so enlightened if we were surrounded by 70:1 odds of people that wanted to destroy us.
March 25th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Is it time for a Nietzsche quote?
March 25th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Because we know that Hamas does not engage in religious indoctrination or call for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Palestine so they must be the good guys, right?
I agree with danceswithgoats completely. The Israeli government and Hamas should be equally condemned as terrorist organizations.
March 25th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
March 25th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
I would argue that the right wing nationalists who call for a resettlement of Palestinian lands by Israelis are a very vocal, but very small minority. Most right wing Orthodox Israelis realize that they will have to disengage from some current settlements in the West Bank or at the very least others believe that there shouldn’t be an expansion of the settlements. On a different,but related note, secular Israelis and progressively religious voted for this government as well and share the anti-Palestinian sentiments.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Re Larry Birnbaum
By the way, the US has had some difficulties with overly heavy-handed Christian fundamentalist influence in the US Air Force and specifically at the Air Force Academy — leading to complaints by, among others, Jewish veterans –which had to be addressed by political leadership within the Defense Department.
This has been the subject of numerous threads over at Ed Braytons’ blog and should be at least as concerning as the Jewish fundamentalist influence in the IDF. Here is a link to the most recent thread on his blog about this subject. And this is the US Air Force with a Jewish Chief of Staff, Norton Schwartz. One has to wonder why the fuck General Schwartz isn’t doing something about it.
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/03/air_force_investigating_mrff_c.php#more
These assholes have attempted to proselytize over in Iraq, an overwhelming Muslim country, thus endangering our troops there. It’s time for President Osama to appoint a Secretary of the Air Force who should then tell General Schwartz to get off his ass and clean up the mess.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
LarryM says:
“Of course, the irony is that the Likudniks have been saying for years that it was “us or them.” What they failed to realize is that, when forced to choose, most people will not continue to support an apartheid (at best!) state.”
“Most people”? Most people where? In the cloistered world of Matt’s blog, this opinion may indeed be in the majority but it’s a minority opinion everywhere else in the US. Israel is not perfect but whatever Israel may be, it is preferable to the alternative. What would happen to the Israel, the West Bank and Gaza if Israel ceased to exist? You say:
“I have no illusions where that will likely lead (though I hope it will lead to voluntary emigrations rather than forced emigration, and who knows, cynic that I am, maybe human nature will surprise me).”
How nice. You “have no illusions” but then you go on to present an illusion in place of the ugly truth. The truth is not two people living in harmony. The truth would be another Arab state ruled by tyrrants. If this ever comes to pass, I trust you and Matt will move there and bring along your young children, especially the women. They can experience this Utopia for themselves. Just be sure keep them covered at all times and never, ever let them talk to men who aren’t members of the family. If they do, you may have to kill them to preserve your family honor.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
NY Nick says: “Israel is not perfect but whatever Israel may be, it is preferable to the alternative.”
I don’t think people are arguing that the US ought to start funneling $3 billion a year in military aid to Hamas.
If Israel wants to go on mimicking the Boer version of western culture, fine. There are plenty of other ugly little regimes in every part of the world – I don’t think this one is by any means the nastiest of the lot. But it is surely time to ask why the US should have an interest in helping out.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Israel just keeps getting worse and worse, more atrocity stories come out every day, more pathetic details about the corrupt, fascist, imperialist, racist state and brutalization of the Palestinians day by day – and the Zionist freaks just keep posting the same old ruminant evacuation.
Until the Palestinian death camps appear (although one could reasonably claim Gaza already is one), I suppose this will continue.
If the US military allowed a bunch of right wing Christians to swam military camps with literature claiming “we have to get all the niggers out of the US because the US was given to white people by God”, all hell would break loose.
Israel – no, no double standard there.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Why oh why is it that anytime anyone criticizes the Israeli right wing people immediately fall back on accusations of anti-semitism? It doesn’t exactly move debate forward. It’s pretty clear that there are some bad actors on the Israeli right. It is equally clear that there are some REALLY bad actors in control in Gaza. Happily, Israel is a functioning democracy with a free press that publishes articles that criticize the far-right for their disgusting rhetoric. Unfortunately, the Palestinians have no such process. Because of this difference, it’s pretty important that the US continue to work with Israel and try and nudge it down a path that can de-escalate the violence in the region. In fact, even in the incredibly unlikely event that Israel suddenly morphed into a theocratic state with a “divinely annointed” king in Jerusalem who started going all old testament on the Israeli arabs and the palestinians, we would STILL have to try and keep a relationship with Israel, for the same reasons that we should have some relationship with Hamas and Iran – in order to try and leverage that government toward policies that promote our interests. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to say that we should be working toward a better relationship with Hamas, but we can’t or won’t work with an imaginary right-wing Israel
March 25th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Another day, Another hyperventilating Israel bashing story from Yglesias.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
What’s really funny about this post is the picture?
anyone with the least knowledge of Israel would know that religious rabbis will not embed themselves in female units. The women in the picture are most assuredly secular.
But if Yglesias can distort a picture to “say” something it does not mean, what else can he twist?
March 25th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Why is Israel held to such a high and different standard?
a. because the United States gives them huge amounts of money
b. because they’re the more powerful party
c. they’re not, at least not by me. Ethnic cleansing is always deplorable.
March 25th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
It’s a catch-22: without this, you’ll have more religious Jews taking the yeshiva exemption from service, which in turn means that secular Israeli conscripts end up doing the patrolling and shooting on behalf of the ultranationalists and religious nutcases.
Probably not. The Zionist Orthodox would keep on volunteering regardless – they don’t take advantage of the yeshiva opt-out. It’s very important for them to join the Army.I remember after the Gaza Disengagement many people thought that the Dati Leumi (National Religious) would involve themselves less with the army or refuse to go to officer school. That doesn’t seem to have happened. If that didn’t dissuade them, I don’t think a lack of racist rabbis would.
The people who do take advantage of the yeshiva exemption tend not to be Zionists, and are usually anti-Zionists. I’m not aware of any Zionist yeshiva students taking advantage of this, as it was historically a cop out for people who opposed the State in the first place and certainly did not want to fight for it. (Among other reasons.)
March 25th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
But over the last 15 years, as secular Israelis have soured on the occupation of Palestinian territory, religious nationalists have taken over senior positions in elite combat brigades.
This part doesn’t smell right to me. It sounds like someone with an axe to grind against the National Religious fed this to the LA Times. He’s making it sound as if there’s been some kind of exodus of conscientious objectors from the ranks of the secular, while it’s the crazy nutjob NR’s that have been rushing to fill the ranks. As if the secular Israelis shouldn’t bear the responsibility for their actions. There are plenty of secular Israelis, as the last election has proven, that are not favorable to a two-state solution. Of Netanyahu’s coalition, only 15 seats belong to religious parties. Only one party is a National Religious party, consisting of 4 seats. That’s 4 out of 61. Likud, Yisrael Beitenu and Labor are all secular parties, YB avowedly so. Revisionist Zionism is not Religious Zionism. It’s time for the secular Jews to man up and accept responsibility for their actions.
March 25th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
My hope would be that we can turn this trend around, but it may not be possible and the United States might have to ask itself what kind of relationship it can have with a country where this sort of doctrine is put forward in official settings.
Not sure how official this is. I doubt the IDF vets the rabbis they hire except to see if they have criminal records. Clearly, this process should be revised. But I don’t think the State in general even knows or pays attention to this. They are now, though, I assume.
Christopher Hitchens wrote an article for Slate this week:
Where he presents the case of a rabbi from the ’80’s who made some ugly remarks and was let off easy by the IDF. It seems to have evolved from isolated incidents to a full-blown epidemic.
But I don’t think this enjoys any official sanction.
March 25th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Makes you wonder that if increasing Hamas and Hizballah attacking power eventually ever caused a significant portion of Israeli jews to emigrate, if the remnant of jewish Israelis won’t be mostly fundamentalists who will increase the pain for the Palestinians even more for as long as they can.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Matt: Sensational headlines like this radicalize the simple-minded and make serious people less likely to take your opinions seriously. Way below your usual standards, more like Fox News for the left.
March 26th, 2009 at 12:39 am
Are they wearing BROWN shirts yet?
March 26th, 2009 at 1:46 am
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March 26th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
“I think the easiest way to solve all our problems is to physically move Israel and Pakistan next to each other.”
I agree that this would certainly solve our problems with Israel and Pakistan but the nuclear winter would just massively add to our global warming problem….
March 26th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
It is amazing the amount of time that anti-semites and self-hating jews have in their hands. Looking to comment on every piece of anti-Israel commentary on the web. For what reason? Very simple: their blood boils when thinking the Jews finally can defend themselves.
March 26th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
And for James, he has unlimited time to scan the Web for “anti-Semites” because he’s paid by AIPAC to do so as part of their witch hunt.
March 28th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Dear Richard…let your anger rise more and more! That is my boy…
April 9th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
My friend on Orkut shared this link with me and I’m not dissapointed at all that I came here.