Rabbis issue prohibition against evacuating settlements

Rabbis issue prohibition against evacuating settlements

By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and The Associated Press

The rabbinical council representing the West Bank and Gaza Strip issued a public statement Wednesday saying the government must not evacuate settlements and outposts.

"The government is forbidden by a total religious prohibition to evacuate any outpost or settlement, and has no right to give away parts of the land of Israel to strangers, and anything done toward this aim is void," said the statement from the Yesha rabbinical council, named for the Hebrew acronym for the territories.

<snip>

Members of the Yesha rabbinical council, who met Wednesday evening at Migron, said thousands of yeshiva students will come to the outpost to try and keep Israel Defense Forces troops from evacuating it.

<snip>

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/373195.html

As the article points out (and should be no surprise to anyone), the ruling is not legally binding.

The Yesha council is at loggerheads with common sense. In the long run, my bets are on common sense.

:shrug:

How can Israel survive as a "Jewish state" when religious authorities defy the secular power? Might it not be time for Israel--the state and government of Israel--to join the modern world, drop its identification with Judaism, and put these rabbinical councils in their place? Or maybe it's time for the rest of the world to demand that the government of Israel rein in these extremists, just as Israel demands that the Palestinian Authority rein in its own?

Chirac backs head scarf ban <snip> France's leading Jewish secular organization came out strongly in favour of the proposed new law {a ban on Islamic head scarves and other "conspicuous" religious symbols in public schools}. "Everyone who lives in France must submit to the rules and customs of French society. It is the reaffirmation of the principle of equality between men and women," said a statement by the Representative Council of French Jewish Organizations. </snip>

Your post implies that religion is out of step with the modern world. That is not necessarily true.

The concern is not that Israel should remain a Jewish state, but that it should remain a Jewish state and a democracy. To do so, she would have to be content to remain in her present borders with an 80% Jewish majority.

Of course, a Jewish state doesn't have to be a democracy. Surely, if the rabbis were allowed to set themselves up as the arbiters of who is a good Jew and decree that the better the Jew, the more rights he should have as a citizen, then democracy is dead. So, I agree that for the rabbis to defy secular power would be a setback. However, it would be a setback for democracy.

Israel could be a Jewish state just as England is an Anglican state or Italy a Roman Catholic state. The state sets aside revenues to support an official church. While this is a violation of democratic principal, it is a venial one. As long as citizenship is universal rather than restricted to members of the official church and as long as each citizen, regardless of his faith, has an equal opportunity to influence and participate in public affairs, then we have a democratic state.

It isn't entirely inaccurate, but if somebody joins the Anglican faith, they don't get to be citizens of England, do they?

Or, to make it more realistic, they don't get to be citizens of England living in Northern Ireland, kicking out the Irish population, do they?

Israel is the state of the Jewish people in Israel and the disapora.

In England, religion via the state is mostly symbolic.

That is the crucial difference.

would stay out of politics.

They are probably the same ones that cheered when Rabin was assassinated. They are no more representative of Judaism than the Wahhabis are of Islam.

There was a story about Sharon and the settlers on BBC News tonight. Sharon was speaking about shutting down some settlements that he had just built. The BBC reporter interviewed a woman settler who berated Sharon for betraying the settlers. The woman spoke flawless American English, flawless because she was one of the many American ultra-Zionists that have emigrated to the Occupied Territories in recent years in order to build the "Greater Israel." These recent transplants from America are the ones most likely to oppose any land-for-peace settlement to the I/P conflict. They also bring with them the worst traits of American nationalism and jingoism.

Neocons come in many flavors...

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Sharon has indicated that the unilateral action will be several months from now. Also, he did not give a number of settlements he will move, not did he indicate which settlements would be involved. That gives them time to be outraged, and then settle into acceptance. Any court process might be completed by then. By announcing this intention now, it may clear the way for actual action when the time comes.

It is of necessity, because by completing the Peace Fence, the settlements will be more of a target for terrorism, if only by virtue of eliminating Israeli cities for attacks.