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The Israeli government is currently debating whether to designate so-called “price tag” attacks as “acts of terror.” Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch reportedly favor the move, as does the Shin Bet security service; Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein used to be opposed, but is considering changing his mind; Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has thus far also been opposed. Both sides have valid arguments. The question is whether there’s any way to craft the designation that would preserve the benefits while avoiding the drawbacks.
The immediate benefit of a terrorist designation is that it would give law enforcement agencies greater tools to cope with attacks that have damaged both Israel’s image overseas and its efforts to keep the peace in the West Bank. But another consideration might be equally important in the long run: Not doing so could undermine Israel’s goal of promoting a clear, uniform standard for what constitutes terror.
Israel has long suffered from the fact that most countries refuse to adopt such a standard, and consequently refuse to designate organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups on such pretexts as that they are “important players” in (respectively) Palestinian and Lebanese society, or that they engage in many social welfare projects when they aren’t busy lobbing rockets at Israeli civilians. But Israel can’t credibly criticize this laxity if it doesn’t adhere to the same kind of standard it wants others to adopt.
And though there’s no universally accepted definition of terrorism, the definition generally accepted by people who don’t engage in apologetics for terror is simple: the deliberate employment of violence against civilians to achieve a political purpose. By that definition, some price tag attacks clearly qualify. The victims are usually Palestinian civilians, and the perpetrators make no bones about their political purpose: to deter the government from razing homes in West Bank settlements and outposts. Indeed, that’s precisely why they call their operations “price tag” – they want the government to know that any such demolitions will carry a “price tag” in the form of subsequent violence.
Price tag attacks also sometimes target soldiers. But since Israel’s terrorism laws have never distinguished between attacks on soldiers and attacks on civilians (which I consider a mistake, but that’s a different issue), these should also qualify as terrorism.
Nevertheless, there’s one serious problem with the above argument. “Terror” is usually used for attacks that could, at least in theory, kill or wound – suicide bombings, shootings, stabbings, etc. And only a small minority of price tag attacks fall into that category: The majority target property rather than people.
Granted, any definition of terror has some gray areas. The Basque group ETA, for instance, is widely considered a terrorist organization even though it often provides advance notice so that people can evacuate its targets, meaning it effectively targets property rather than people. But ETA’s bombings at least have the potential to cause multiple casualties, and some of them have.
Some price tag attacks could also fall into this gray area – for instance, arson attacks on empty mosques, since there’s always a risk that the building isn’t really empty. But others, such as chopping down olive trees, don’t even have the potential to cause casualties. And many price tag attacks amount to no more than spray-painting offensive graffiti on mosques, churches or even cars.
All such vandalism is both reprehensible and criminal, and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But do we really want to equate spray-painted slogans with suicide bombings? All we would thereby accomplish is to cheapen the definition of terror and mitigate the revulsion it ought to inspire.
Even the price tag attacks that do involve violence rarely go beyond stone-throwing, which is still a far cry from suicide bombings. That also raises questions about whether equating the two is either fair or wise: Inter alia, it would make it even easier for the maliciously inclined to insist there’s no difference between Israelis and Palestinians; “both sides have their terrorists.”
But stone-throwing – especially at cars – absolutely should be defined as terror, because stones are also lethal weapons, even if less so than bombs. Just last month, for instance, a Palestinian was convicted of murdering Asher Palmer and his infant son because the rocks he threw at their car caused it to overturn; the month before, a three-year-old girl was critically injured when rocks thrown by Palestinians caused a truck to veer into her family’s car.
A separate problem is that, according to police, much of what the media terms “price tag” vandalism is actually no such thing: Many non-ideological hooligans have simply learned that scrawling “price tag” alongside their work guarantees massive media attention for vandalism that would otherwise be ignored. Thus even determining what is and isn’t a genuine price tag attack is far from simple, and a broad designation could result in many people who have nothing to do with price tag violence being improperly treated as terrorist suspects.
Still another worry is that price tag attacks often coincide with demonstrations against outpost demolitions. Some of these demonstrations are themselves violent, involving fights with policemen or soldiers and vandalism against their vehicles. Again, this is criminal and reprehensible, and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But there’s a real risk that a broad definition of price tag attacks as terror could also be used to suppress demonstrations against outpost demolitions. It would be all too easy for the security services to assert that given the similarity in both the purpose (deterring demolitions) and some of the tactics (violence or vandalism), such demonstrations should themselves be treated as prohibited terrorist activity. That would dangerously undermine basic civil liberties.
Thus if the terrorist designation could be narrowly crafted to cover only the most serious and violent price tag attacks, the benefits would likely outweigh the costs. But a broad designation would likely have more costs than benefits. The government should therefore insist that its lawyers produce a very narrow, carefully worded designation. And if they can’t, the idea should be shelved.
While visiting Israel this weekend, Secretary of State John Kerry said that everywhere he goes – Europe, the Gulf States, China, Japan, even New Zealand and Brazil – the first thing he is asked about is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Perhaps his hosts are simply demonstrating tact by starting off with the only issue Kerry shows any real interest in. But if this is truly their number-one concern, we should all be afraid: It means the leaders and diplomats entrusted with managing global crises don’t have the faintest understanding of what is and isn’t important.
Even if we disregard some pretty major problems elsewhere on the planet – for instance, the adventurism of nuclear North Korea, or the serious instability in another nuclear power, Pakistan, where Islamic extremists slaughter thousands of their own countrymen every year – there’s a Middle Eastern problem right next door that’s infinitely more important than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I am talking, of course, about Syria.
It’s not just that the Syrian conflict has already killed five to 10 times as many people in a mere two years – anywhere from 80,000 to 120,000, depending on whose estimate you believe – as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has in the entire 65 years of Israel’s existence (about 15,000). It’s that unlike the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Syrian conflict is rapidly destabilizing all its neighbors.
Over the last 25 years, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has manifested itself in two intifadas and two Hamas-Israel wars. Not one of them resulted in refugees fleeing to other countries, fighters pouring in from other countries, or violence inside other countries. The Syrian conflict, however, has produced large quantities of all three.
Some 1.5 million Syrian refugees have fled to other countries, mainly Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, and the UN says the number is rising by about 250,000 per month. This is putting a serious strain on the host countries.
Moreover, citizens of most of Syria’s neighbors – especially Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan – are now fighting in Syria, acquiring skills that their countries of origin fear will be turned against their own countrymen when they return. And the problem isn’t confined to Arab countries: Hundreds of European Muslims are also fighting in Syria, where they are being further radicalized and learning military skills that will make them serious terror risks when they return. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has attracted no similar influx.
Finally, the Syrian conflict is exporting violence to all its neighbors. To cite just two of the most serious incidents, a double bombing killed 52 people in Reyhanli, a Turkish town near the Syrian border, two weeks ago, while Sunni-Alawite clashes in the Lebanese city of Tripoli have killed 29 people in the last week.
The Syrian conflict is thus a clear and present danger to every country in the region, and even to some farther afield, like the European states whose citizens are fighting there. The same hasn’t been true of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in decades: The last time this conflict drew in another country was the 1982 Lebanon War (the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006 had nothing to do with the Palestinians). Today, the conflict affects nobody but Israelis and Palestinians themselves.
Yet the statesmen whom we count on to manage global affairs appear to be stuck in a time warp, unable to see that the map of the world’s problems has changed. And that may pose an even greater danger than the bloodbath in Syria.
You couldn’t make this up: As thousands of people in large swathes of the planet, including war-torn Syria, are dying daily for lack of adequate medical care, the one geographic area whose “health conditions” are slated for condemnation at the World Health Organization’s annual conference is, naturally, “the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan.” What makes this surreal isn’t just that the above areas enjoy far better “health conditions” than much of the rest of the world. It’s that the Palestinian Authority (Israel’s “peace partner”), together with Syria and other Arab countries, is seeking to condemn Israel at a time when it is actively providing medical services to both Palestinians and Syrians.
The denunciation of health conditions on the Golan is particularly surreal: Syrians in Syria, where medical care of any kind is often simply unavailable, would be thrilled to get the same state-of-the-art care as their brethren on the Golan–where, as in East Jerusalem, Israeli law applies, entitling residents to the same services as all other Israelis.
But thanks to Israel, some of those Syrians actually are getting such care–which is doubtless Syrian President Bashar Assad’s real gripe. Israel has quietly set up a field hospital on the Golan where dozens of Syrians wounded in the civil war have been treated; others, who need more intensive care, have been transferred to regular Israeli hospitals.
Israel has also offered treatment to some Syrian refugees. Just this month, via Israel’s Save a Child’s Heart program, Israeli doctors saved the life of a four-year-old Syrian refugee with a serious heart condition. Similar treatment was offered to three other Syrian children in Jordan who have similar conditions, but their parents refused: Apparently, they fell victim to their own anti-Israel propaganda. Still, the doctors are hoping they will change their minds once the first girl returns to Jordan healthy and happy.
In the PA and Hamas-run Gaza, health care is also far better than in much of the rest of the world, though admittedly not up to Israeli standards. Of course, any deficiencies are their own fault: Both have had complete autonomy in civil affairs for years; Israel can hardly be blamed if they chose to invest in, say, military training for schoolchildren rather than better health care.
But more importantly, they have an advantage most other countries with similar health-care systems don’t: generous access to Israeli hospitals for any problems their own can’t treat. And you needn’t take my word for it: Just this month, after PA Health Minister Hani Abdeen visited Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital, the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported that “30% of the patients who are children are Palestinians.” It also reported that Hadassah is now training some 60 Palestinian doctors, who will then return to serve the PA’s own population.
It’s disgraceful that an otherwise respectable organization like WHO would lend its countenance to a farcical resolution like this. But it’s an excellent lesson in why the positions of the “international community” are often deserving of derision rather than respect–especially when it comes to Israel.
The ongoing debate about whether America should intervene in Syria highlights an important point about Israel’s unique value as a U.S. ally: It is the only American ally in the Middle East willing and able to serve American interests by projecting power independently, rather than waiting for American troops to ride to the rescue.
One of the most bizarre features of Syria’s ongoing civil war is the widespread assumption that outside intervention against the Assad regime will come from the U.S. or not at all. After all, the rebels’ main backers include two American allies with powerful militaries, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Turkey has one of the region’s largest armies, significantly larger than Syria’s; moreover, as a NATO member, it’s equipped with state-of-the-art Western weaponry. Saudi Arabia has been a major purchaser of the best American weaponry for years, including fighter jets, missiles and airborne warning and control systems. Both have billed Assad’s departure as a major national interest. Yet never once have they suggested that their combined air forces could use Turkey’s bases to impose a no-fly zone over part of Syria; they take it for granted that if military intervention is to happen, America will have to do it. And so does Washington.
In contrast, Israel has always insisted on taking sole responsibility for its own defense, and is consequently both willing and able to take independent military action. And because its interests in the region often overlap with those of its American ally, such action often ends up serving American interests. That was true in the Cold War, when Israeli battles with the Soviet Union’s Arab proxies repeatedly proved the superiority of American over Soviet arms. It was true when Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981: Had it not thereby stopped Saddam Hussein from acquiring nukes, an American-led coalition wouldn’t have been able to oust his forces from Kuwait a decade later. And it was true when Israel bombed Syria’s nuclear reactor in 2007: Today, Americans are sleeping better because they don’t have to worry about al-Qaida-linked militias in Syria getting their hands on nuclear materiel.
Thanks to Israel, America never had to face a choice between taking military action against Syria or Iraq itself or letting a hostile dictator acquire nukes. But because its other Middle Eastern allies aren’t willing or able to act independently, it does face that kind of choice in Syria today: either take military action itself, or see its credibility in the region shredded by allowing Assad to survive despite President Barack Obama’s repeated statements that he must go–with the attendant risk that some of its regional allies will switch sides and align instead with Russia and Iran, who have proven their willingness to support their Syrian ally to the hilt.
This understanding of Israel’s unique value was precisely what led to yesterday’s astounding 99-0 Senate vote on a resolution pledging American support for Israel if it is compelled to take independent military action against Iran’s nuclear program. The senators understand that despite Congress’ best efforts, sanctions may fail to halt Iran’s nuclear drive; that the Obama administration may ultimately prefer to avoid military action, even though a nuclear Iran would be disastrous for America’s interests in the region; and that none of the Arab countries that have vociferously lobbied Washington to attack Iran would ever do so themselves. But they know that Israel really might. And through this resolution, they were expressing their appreciation of the only Middle Eastern ally America has that is willing to act independently to advance shared regional interests.
For anyone who still thinks Europe’s widespread anti-Israel sentiment is purely a reaction to Israel’s policies, completely untainted by anti-Semitism, consider the unblushing announcement made by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius today: France, he said, is now ready to consider listing Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organization, because “the fact that it has fought extremely hard against the Syrian population” has caused Paris to reverse its longstanding opposition to the move.
Naturally, I’m delighted that France has finally seen the light about Hezbollah. But France had no problem with the organization during all the years it was conducting cross-border attacks on the Israeli population. Lest anyone forget, these attacks continued even after Israel’s UN-certified withdrawal from every last inch of Lebanese territory in 2000; it was one such cross-border raid that sparked the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006. In other words, France has just declared that cross-border incursions to kill Jews in Israel are perfectly fine, but cross-border incursions to kill Muslims in Syria are beyond the pale. If that isn’t an anti-Semitic double standard, I don’t know what is.
Indeed, until now, France has consistently billed Hezbollah as a legitimate political force that contributes to stability in the Levant. That was always nonsensical: Starting a war with your southern neighbor that devastates large swathes of your own country, as Hezbollah did in 2006, is not exactly stabilizing behavior. But apparently, in France’s view, fighting Israel does contribute to Middle East stability: It’s only because Hezbollah is now fighting Syrians instead that Paris suddenly sees the organization as a destabilizing force.
If other European countries think the same thing, they had the decency not to say it aloud. Germany, for instance, said it has reversed its longstanding opposition to blacklisting Hezbollah due to evidence that the organization was behind last summer’s terror attack in Bulgaria, which killed five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian, and had been collecting information in Cyprus in preparation for additional terror attacks against Israelis and Jews on European soil. I’m no fan of the German approach, which essentially says terrorism is fine as long as you keep it out of Europe, but there’s nothing anti-Semitic about it; it’s perfectly normal for Europeans to care more about attacks on European soil than they do about attacks in the Middle East.
France, in contrast, has just said it cares deeply about attacks in the Middle East–but only if they’re directed against (non-Israeli) Muslims. You want to kill Jews in the Middle East? Go right ahead, says France: We’ll even help you do it, by keeping you off the EU’s list of terrorist organizations and thereby ensuring that you can fund-raise freely on our territory. Just don’t make the mistake of turning your arms on Muslims instead.
Unsurprisingly, last week’s column upset many haredim. Before responding to some of their comments, I want to tell a story, from Rabbi Shlomo Goren’s autobiography:
During the War of Independence, Goren, the IDF’s first chief rabbi, was summoned one Friday morning by the army’s commander in Jerusalem. Army intelligence had just learned that Jordanian tanks would invade central Jerusalem at 11 A.M. on Saturday. Jerusalem had no weaponry that could stop a tank column, the commander said, so the only chance was to dig trenches to bar their path. But since Jordan was shelling the area constantly by day, they could only be dug after sundown, thereby violating Shabbat. Moreover, his soldiers were all fighting at the front and couldn’t be spared, so the only men available were haredi yeshiva students who hadn’t enlisted. Could Goren recruit them?
Jewish law mandates violating Shabbat to save lives, and both Goren and then-Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Herzog agreed this situation qualified. But they feared the students wouldn’t accept their rulings. Herzog therefore sent Goren to the rabbi of Neturei Karta – who flatly forbade violating Shabbat, especially since “it won’t help anyway: The city will fall.”
So Goren decided to appeal directly to the students. He went from yeshiva to yeshiva, explained the situation and requested volunteers – and at each, including the Neturei Karta yeshivas, every hand in the room went up. That night, over 1,000 haredi yeshiva students dug trenches in Jerusalem. Saturday morning, the first three Jordanian tanks hit those trenches and overturned. The rest turned tail and fled.
Without these haredim, Israel would probably have lost all of Jerusalem in 1948 rather than only part. Yet had it depended on their rabbis, the city would have fallen: It survived because ordinary haredim were less religiously extreme (and perhaps more Zionist) than their leaders.
Today, most haredim are still more moderate, and more Zionist, than their leaders. Yet this story probably couldn’t happen today, because it depended on the students not knowing their rabbi disapproved: Unable to traverse the besieged city to consult him, they had to decide for themselves. Today, they would simply telephone. And once told “no,” they wouldn’t disobey. To haredim, their rabbis’ rulings are daas Torah (the Torah’s opinion), and therefore can’t be questioned – regardless of how often they’ve proven wrong.
With one exception, this fact relates directly to readers’ complaints about my comparison of Palestinian and haredi leaders’ tactics. The exception is an important difference I shouldn’t have neglected to mention: No haredi considers murder an acceptable tactic.
It’s equally true that haredim don’t share the Palestinians’ goals: Most genuinely care about Israel and their fellow Israelis, and many actively contribute to both through wonderful haredi organizations like Yad Sarah or Zichron Menachem. But leaving aside a technical quibble (my article discussed tactics, not goals), the real problem with this contention is that you’d never guess it from listening to haredi leaders. And since unlike other Israelis, who frequently and vocally disagree with their leaders, haredim never publicly disagree with theirs, that majority of Israelis who don’t know any haredim personally very reasonably assume their leaders speak for them.
For examples, consider Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman’s statement that no haredi should ever serve in the army, because “The very act of living in the army framework causes terrible spiritual danger,” or Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s statement that haredim should emigrate rather than enlist. Everyone knows Israel wouldn’t survive for a second without its army. So if the spiritual danger of army service is really so great that emigration is preferable, the obvious implication is that these rabbis abominate either Israel or their fellow Jews: Either Israel ought to disappear, since its continued existence necessitates putting Jews in “terrible spiritual danger,” or non-haredim aren’t real Jews, so this spiritual danger doesn’t apply. Yet ordinary haredim never publicly challenge such statements. Do they not know, or care, how non-haredim interpret them?
Moving onto another reader complaint: Since Shteinman explicitly forbade violence at the May 17 demonstration I cited, how can I say haredi rabbis tacitly condone such violence? Bluntly, for the same reason I say Mahmoud Abbas condones violence despite his oft-repeated claim to oppose it: Too much evidence contradicts this claim.
Granted, haredi rabbis never glorify violence, whereas Abbas, his Fatah party and the Palestinian Authority-controlled media do so nonstop. But neither do they condemn it with even a fraction of the passion and frequency with which they condemn, say, army service or Reform Jews. Last Thursday’s demonstration against the draft, at which haredim throwing rocks and bottles wounded 10 policemen, is a good example: Of four Ashkenazi haredi papers, all “guided” by different rabbis, one directly condemned the violence, one indirectly condemned it, and two simply ignored it. Yet every haredi paper repeatedly and vociferously denounces army service.
This relative investment of rabbinic time and passion sends a clear signal as to which issues the rabbis really care about and which they don’t. And haredi thugs hear it: If they really thought their rabbis considered stone-throwing worse than army service or women reading Torah, most (even if not all) would stop. But because ordinary haredim never publicly challenge their rabbis, most Israelis reasonably conclude that they, too, share this order of priorities.
Finally, I’d like my haredi readers to consider one thing: I’m an Orthodox Jew who knows many wonderful haredim. I have dear haredi friends; last November, I danced at their youngest daughter’s wedding. Consequently, I’m far more “pro-haredi” than most Israelis, who aren’t Orthodox, never met a haredi and certainly don’t have haredi friends. Thus if I’ve so totally lost patience with your rabbis, how do you think other Israelis feel? And is blaming the admittedly sometimes hostile secular media really an adequate solution?
I truly believe most haredim are more like those yeshiva students who saved Jerusalem in 1948 than the rabbi who would have let the city fall. But most Israelis don’t. And they never will until either haredi rabbis change their behavior, or ordinary haredim become willing to publicly admit their rabbis are fallible human beings, who are sometimes just plain wrong.
In explaining his staunch support for Israel, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper frequently cites the lessons of history: that those who make Jews “a target of racial and religious bigotry will inevitably be a threat to all of us.” The truth of that statement is visible throughout the Islamic world today, where countries that first got rid of their Jews are now turning in vicious fury on their Christians. Yet many Christian churches seem blind to the connection.
Christianity is currently the world’s most persecuted religion, and the heart of that persecution is the Islamic world. Churches have been attacked in Iraq, Egypt and Libya, among other countries; Christian ministers have been assassinated; and thousands of ordinary Christians have been killed. In Iraq, fewer than 500,000 Christians are thought to remain, down from 800,000 to 1.4 million a decade earlier (estimates vary widely). In Egypt, about 100,000 Coptic Christians have fled just in the last few months. This isn’t a new development; scholars estimate that “between a half and two-thirds of Christians in the region have left or been killed over the past century.” But it has accelerated greatly in recent years.
There’s a clear line running from the disappearance of the Islamic world’s Jews in the mid-20th century to today’s accelerated persecution of Christians. When these Jewish communities still existed, they were the favorite target on which enraged Muslim mobs could vent their fury: See, for instance, the pogroms in Baghdad, Cairo and Tripoli in the 1940s. But in the years after Israel’s establishment in 1948, all these Jewish communities either were driven out or fled.
For a while, the Jews of Israel served as a substitute: Arab regimes launched three full-scale wars against Israel, provided bases and funding for Palestinian terrorists, whipped up anti-Israel sentiment through state-owned media, and encouraged anti-Israel demonstrations, thereby channeling popular discontent away from themselves. But while anti-Israel (and anti-Jewish) outbursts are still common in Arab countries, Israel’s insistence on growing and thriving despite these efforts made it an unsatisfactory target for mobs who actually wanted to see their victims suffer.
So, stymied on the Jewish front, they increasingly turned to the next target on their list, which had the advantage of being nearby and vulnerable. As the old Islamic taunt puts it, “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.”
Yet rather than understand, as Harper has, that the same religious intolerance and dysfunctional political culture is behind both anti-Israel sentiment and the persecution of Christians–and that consequently, if Israel disappeared tomorrow, this victory would only provide a tailwind for the war against the “Sunday people”–many Christian churches seem to think the solution is to win the Muslim world’s love by joining the anti-Israel onslaught: See, for instance, the disgraceful report published by the Church of Scotland earlier this month, which said that Christians shouldn’t support Jewish claims to the Land of Israel on either biblical grounds or “as a compensation for the suffering of the Holocaust”; a similar document issued by a Catholic bishops’ synod; or the Presbyterian Church’s Israel Palestine Mission Network, which has pushed resolutions equating Israel with apartheid and vocally supports the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement.
The truth is that Muslim persecution of Christians won’t end until the Islamic world abandons the fantasy that others–whether it’s Israel, Christians or the West–are at the root of their problems. Yet by adopting the Muslim habit of blaming Israel for all the region’s ills, Christian churches are actively feeding that fantasy. And they are thereby ultimately encouraging their own coreligionists’ persecution.
Last Tuesday, Palestinian rioters threw rocks and chairs at a group of Jews who offended them by visiting Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount. Last Friday, haredi rioters threw rocks and chairs at a group of Jews who offended them by holding a women’s prayer service at Judaism’s second-holiest site, the Western Wall. Can anyone spot the difference?
True, many haredim view Women of the Wall’s services as a desecration of Judaism. But many Muslims view Jews on the Temple Mount as a desecration of their religion. And both groups feel justified in using violence to enforce their own interpretation of their religion’s mandates.
In fairness, there is one difference: Unlike Palestinians, haredim don’t lionize their violent thugs; indeed, many find them appalling. Yet this distinction is meaningless in practice, because those decent, appalled haredim nevertheless unswervingly support a leadership that at best tacitly condones, and at worst actively encourages, this behavior.
Leading haredi rabbis have no problem making their displeasure known when they want to. In February, for instance, Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman published a broadside in the haredi daily Yated Neeman deeming it unacceptable for haredim to help protect their fellow Jews (including their own community) by joining the Israel Defense Forces. Can anyone remember the last time a leading haredi rabbi published a front-page broadside deeming it unacceptable to stone cars on Shabbat?
Nor is tolerance for violence the only similarity: Haredi leaders also share the Palestinians’ approach to negotiations. Both groups view themselves as aggrieved victims who aren’t obliged to contribute anything to a solution, and for whom no concession is ever enough.
That was driven home to me by Jonathan Rosenblum’s column in this paper in February advocating a “pragmatic” approach to drafting haredim. Rosenblum, despite his own more moderate views, generally seeks to explain the haredi leadership’s thinking. Regarding army service, he wrote, “‘confidence-building’ steps will be required. In particular, the haredi community must be convinced that the goal of the larger society is not to destroy Torah learning and with it the haredi community for whom the study of Torah is the highest societal value. The haredim must be assured that service in the IDF is not designed to fashion them into ‘new Jews’.”
Ten years ago, I’d have considered that a valid fear. But since then, both the Knesset and the IDF have made it clear that isn’t their goal.
First, the IDF set up special haredi units where the men are separated from women, get haredi-approved kosher food and study Talmud every day in addition to their army work. In these units, the goal is explicitly to ensure that haredim remain haredi, because, as one officer explained, “the greatest threat to the project [of getting more haredim to serve] would be if they leave the army as non-haredim.”
Second, leaders of every single Jewish Knesset faction have acknowledged the importance of full-time Torah study in the most concrete possible fashion: agreeing that any new law should include both draft exemptions and government stipends for hundreds or thousands of top Torah students every year (different proposals have different numbers; the coalition’s current proposal is 1,800).
Mainstream Israel has thus demonstrated that it wants to destroy neither Torah learning nor the haredi lifestyle: It merely wants to ensure that both are economically sustainable over the long run by getting more haredim into the army and workforce. What further “confidence-building” measures could it offer, short of complete capitulation to the unsustainable proposition that every haredi who so wishes be permanently exempt from army service and work – which in fact is what haredi leaders are demanding?
That’s the Palestinian approach, too: Israel must first accept the 1967 borders and free all Palestinian terrorists; then, when there’s nothing left to discuss, they’ll consider beginning negotiations.
Also like the Palestinians, the haredim apparently see no need to offer any “confidence-building” measures of their own. Take Rosenblum’s claim that “Most haredim agree that those not learning Torah should theoretically serve in the IDF”: That would definitely build confidence if it were true, but it isn’t. Far from sending such men to the army, haredi rabbis consistently engage in cover-ups to prevent them from being drafted, fraudulently reporting them as full-time students even if they rarely set foot in yeshiva.
Indeed, in his Yated broadside in February, Shteinman said explicitly that army service is unacceptable for any haredi, even those not learning Torah. “The very act of living in the army framework causes terrible spiritual danger,” he wrote. Not much room for compromise there.
Like Rosenblum, I think a pragmatic compromise would be infinitely preferable to a destructive war of principle. But it takes two to compromise, and so far, haredi leaders have shown no willingness to do so.
And though many ordinary haredim are less intransigent than their leaders, that’s irrelevant as long as they continue backing those leaders to the hilt – which they do. In January’s election, United Torah Judaism campaigned primarily on keeping haredim out the army. Yet ordinary haredim voted for it in such numbers that they boosted it from five Knesset seats to seven.
I have always believed that haredim have much to contribute to Israel: love of learning, generosity to the poor, valuing the spiritual over the material. But in mimicking the Palestinian leadership’s worst traits – tacit support for violence and refusal to compromise – haredi leaders are desecrating Judaism by making it contemptible to other Jews.
And if their public continues to back them in this behavior, mainstream Israel will have no choice but to treat them as it does the Palestinians: Let them stew in their own juices, and meanwhile do what seems best for the rest of us. In this case, that would mean jailing the stone-throwing thugs, slashing funding for yeshivas, ending funding for schools that don’t teach the core curriculum, drafting all haredi men and penalizing those who evade service.
I abhor that solution, and I wish all the decent, moderate haredim would work with their non-haredi counterparts to find another way. But as long as they keep backing their extremist leaders, I don’t see how that’s possible.
The writer is a journalist and commentator.
Last week, Pew Research published a poll with a seemingly encouraging headline: “Despite Their Wide Differences, Many Israelis and Palestinians Want Bigger Role for Obama in Resolving Conflict.” The poll indeed showed pluralities of both groups wanting President Barack Obama to up his involvement, and if you only read the headline, the implication would be clear: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is solvable if America would just push a little harder, and both sides truly want it to do so.
Yet reading the entire poll produces the opposite conclusion: The conflict clearly isn’t solvable right now, because when asked whether there’s “a way for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully,” a whopping 61 percent of Palestinians said “no,” while only 14 percent said “yes.” (Israelis, in a triumph of hope over experience, said “yes” by a 50-38 margin.) In other words, a huge majority of Palestinians said that even if a Palestinian state is established, the conflict will continue as long as Israel continues to exist. So where does that leave the chances for Israeli-Palestinian peace?
Palestinians have actually been telling pollsters this for years. In a 2007 poll, for instance, 77 percent of Palestinian respondents said “the rights and needs of the Palestinian people cannot be taken care of as long as the state of Israel exists.” And in a 2011 poll, 61 percent of Palestinians said they saw a two-state solution only as a stepping-stone to Israel’s ultimate eradication. Thus the problem isn’t that Palestinians are dishonest about their intentions; it’s that Westerners consistently choose to ignore their frank avowals and focus instead on anything that could possibly be interpreted as grounds for optimism–like the desire for greater American involvement voiced in last week’s poll.
Another example of this tendency is Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo’s statement after meeting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last month: “I felt that he is willing to negotiate a peace process.” On what grounds? “He asked me to convey a message that he would like to see confidence-building measures regarding political prisoners and the problem of the settlements.”
In other words, what Abbas actually said is that he wants Israel to make two major unilateral concessions: freeing Palestinian terrorists and freezing settlement construction. How does a demand for unilateral Israeli concessions in the absence of negotiations translate into a desire for reciprocal concessions agreed on through negotiations, which is what a peace process entails? The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t: The two are antithetical. As another senior PA official, Muhamed Shtayyeh, bluntly explained this month, “We want Israel to give. The Arabs are not required to give.”
This, incidentally, also explains the Pew finding with regard to Obama: When Palestinians say they want more American involvement, what they mean is more pressure on Israel to make unilateral concessions. But like Garcia-Margallo, Pew wanted to see hope where none exists.
This wishful thinking often stems from a genuine desire to see the conflict resolved. Yet there’s no chance of that happening if Westerners keep ignoring the real source of the problem–Palestinian unwillingness to make peace with Israel–rather than addressing it head-on. On the contrary, such behavior actually encourages Palestinian intransigence, because they know the West will whitewash this intransigence rather than penalize it.
And thus, out of a sincere desire to end the conflict, well-meaning Westerners are making it even more intractable.
As Jonathan noted yesterday, it’s hard to blame the lack of Mideast peace on Israel’s “occupation of Arab lands” in 1967 when peace was singularly lacking even before 1967. But this theory rests on a more fundamental fallacy: that all human beings basically want the same things – peace and a good life – and therefore, what Westerners consider a reasonable compromise should satisfy Middle Easterners as well. To understand just how false this is, consider Wednesday’s unanimous vote by the lower house of Jordan’s parliament to expel the Israeli ambassador.
On Tuesday, a group of Jews visited Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount. They didn’t engage in “provocations” such as praying or reciting Psalms, but to many Arabs, the very presence of Jews at the site to which Jews have prayed for 3,000 years is a provocation. Palestinians therefore began hurling rocks and chairs at them, causing the police to intervene. And according to the Jordanian parliament, this sequence of events constituted “criminal attacks by the settlers” – i.e. Jews.
That alone is troubling enough. But parliament’s decision to respond by voting to expel the ambassador is even more troubling given how much Jordan would lose by ending its peace with Israel.
First, under the peace treaty, Israel provides Jordan with tens of millions of cubic meters of water each year. Recently, it even increased this amount to help Jordan cope with its flood of Syrian refugees. Scrapping the treaty would thus greatly exacerbate Jordan’s already severe water shortage.
Second, Israel is now Jordan’s key land bridge for trade with the West. Lacking access of its own to the Mediterranean Sea, Jordan has always conducted most of its trade overland. It used to send its trucks to Syrian ports, but Syria’s civil war made that route too dangerous. So now, the trucks go to Israel’s Haifa Port. Severing the peace treaty would thus cost Jordan its major trade route to the West.
Third, repeated terror attacks on the natural gas pipeline from Egypt left Jordan, like Israel, with a severe gas shortage that caused electricity prices to skyrocket. In Jordan, where Egyptian gas fueled 90 percent of electricity production, the hike in fuel prices sparked violent demonstrations. But unlike Israel, where massive offshore reserves meant the problem was only temporary (the Tamar field came online this April), Jordan has no gas of its own. Consequently, it began negotiating with Israel, the only nearby source. Jordan wants this gas so badly that it even publicly confirmed the talks, though normally, it prefers to hide its dealings with Israel. Yet these talks would clearly go nowhere if the peace treaty were shelved.
In short, Israel is currently vital to three of Jordan’s greatest needs: water, energy, and trade. And while ordinary Jordanians probably don’t know that, its parliamentarians almost certainly do. Yet even so, they voted unanimously to expel Israel’s ambassador – a step that, if actually carried out (King Abdullah has made clear it won’t be), would endanger all three of these benefits, with devastating consequences for Jordan’s economy.
To Jordan’s parliamentarians, the country’s well-being evidently comes a very distant second to the desire to keep Jews from visiting Judaism’s holiest site. That order of priorities would be inconceivable to most Westerners, but it’s extremely common in the Middle East. And that, more than any disagreement about land, explains why Mideast peace remains a distant dream.