Israel at a Crossroads:The Nature of Sacrifice
in the History and Ideology of Gush Emunim
Paper by Sam Aronoff
Senior Seminar
Professor David Weddle
March 12, 2002
THE NATURE OF SACRIFICE IN THE HISTORY AND IDEOLOGY OF THE GUSH EMUNIM
There can be no argument that by living in small settlements in the hostile and explosive West Bank and Gaza Strip, Gush Emunim settlers are making some sort of sacrifice. Surrounded no doubt by hostile Palestinians who feel that the Israelis are occupying their home, religious settlers face the potential for violence and death on a daily basis. In what is becoming a more perilous state of affairs in Israel with each suicide bombing, shooting spree, or IDF incursion into the Palestinian territories and refugee camps, perhaps no one on the Israeli side faces as constant a risk of danger than the Gush Emunim.
This paper will attempt to examine the very nature of sacrifice that the Gush Emunim are involved in, as well as the biblical justification for this sacrifice. I also mean to explore the biblical justification the Gush Emunim may use to support their willingness to resort to violence against the Palestinians in defending this sacrifice. Their attitude towards their hostile neighbors is the same attitude their ancestors held about the Canaanites: “you must be expelled, whether peacefully or violently, because this is our land according to God.” In the history and ideology of the Gush Emunim, examples of both Nancy Jay’s communion sacrifice as well as Hubert and Mauss’s contractual sacrifice are plenty. The sacred violence as a cultural foundation about which Gil Bailie writes can also be found. Furthermore, Girard’s mimetic desire is evident in the competition between Jews and Muslims over the sacred space that is Jerusalem. The history of the Gush Emunim is a highly complex one, yet it can be much more clearly understood when its sacrificial systems and propensity for violence are explained using some of the authors whom we have read in class. Settlement in a hostile environment is the sacrificial risk they take. They have occupied the place of a sacrificial victim. The Palestinians represent the threat to their Messianic purpose.
The Gush Emunim are not, contrary to popular myth, a political party in Israel. While over the course of their existence they have gained much political influence, they did not form to gain seats in the Knesset and change domestic or international policy. This all came later. The Gush Emunim began as rabbinical students and followers of an influential rabbi in Israel in the 1960s, Zvi Yehuda ha-Cohen Kook. Kook taught in Jerusalem at Yeshivat Merkaz Harav. His father, Avraham Yitzchak, was the first Chief Rabbi of the Jewish community in mandatory Palestine. The elder Kook was a pioneer in the religious Zionist movement. While Zionism began as a secular drive towards securing a homeland for the Jewish people, once Israel was actually established, Zionists reached a crossroads. Many dropped out of the movement, believing the movement to have served its only purpose, while others, such as Rabbi Kook, believed that the movement had new directions to go.
Whether or not the original Zionists had intended for Israel to be a secular, socialist nation or not was irrelevant to religious Zionists. The Torah decreed that Israel would be a home to the Jewish people, and therefore the original Zionists such as Theodore Herzl were doing God’s work without knowing that God was using them for religious purposes. Marty and Appleby writes: “Rabbi Kook held that ‘the Return to Zion’ was an unconscious act of repentance and religious obligation on the part of the secular Jews, that in their hearts the Zionists wanted the messianic enterprise to succeed” (Marty and Appleby, p.93). In this way, Kook was describing the fathers of Zionism as being unwilling participants in what Nancy Jay would describe as an “expiatory sacrifice,” or sacrifice as an act of relieving one from sins committed. Hubert and Mauss refer to this as “piacular sacrifice.”
After the elder Kook passed away, his son elaborated on his teachings, and began to gain a larger following, proclaiming that the secular Zionists had launched an “Age of Redemption” when they founded Israel. Only weeks before the Israelis exponentially increased the size of Israel by throttling the combined allied Arab forces in 1967, Zvi Yehuda Kook gave a sermon that his followers would later argue must have been prophetic. Sprinzak explains: “As was his custom, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook delivered a festive sermon, in the midst of which his quiet voice suddenly rose and he bewailed the partition of historic Eretz Yisrael and the inability of the Jews to return to the holy cities of Hebron and Nablus”(Sprinzak, p.44). Three weeks later, the smoke cleared and Jews found themselves at the foot of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, previously occupied by Jordan and off limits to Israelis. The West Bank (including all of East Jerusalem), the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights had been won by Israel from Jordan, Egypt and Syria, respectively. Soon after, a follower of Rav Kook and former Gush Emunim leader, Moshe Levinger, led some religious Zionists into Hebron and illegally established the first Israeli settlement in the West Bank (although merely on the outskirts) after the Six Day War. This settlement, Kiryat Arba remains today one of the most often attacked Gush strongholds. . Thus the seeds for the Gush Emunim movement were set, ready to blossom just a few years later after the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
Israel was thoroughly surprised by the Arab attack on Yom Kippur in 1973, and while they eventually won the war, they suffered heavy casualties. People representing many different interests, from those dissatisfied with Israel’s political system, to those who pointed at military shortcomings, to finally those who believed that an entire new social order (based on religious institutions), clamored for influence in a country rocked by a major and near - disastrous war.
One of the major reasons that the newly emerging Gush Emunim was able to gain respect and attention was because the Yom Kippur War was the first major Israeli war to see large numbers of Orthodox Jews fight. Members of the Yeshivot Hesder, a government program that allowed religious Jews to study Torah part time and also serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, fought side by side with kibbutzniks and other secular Jews. Therefore after the heroic victory, young idealistic Orthodox Jews found a more welcoming arena wherein they could speak their minds on how they believed Israel should be run. After all, they had won the war to the same degree that the unreligious had won the war. Lustick writes: “Their solution was a spiritual rejuvenation of society whose most important expression and source of strength would be settlement on and communion with the greater, liberated Land of Israel” (Lustick, p.44). These young religious idealists took the writing of Rav Kook very seriously.
In the spring of 1974 a group of rabbis, religious war veterans, and “Young Guard” political activists established the organization known as Gush Emunim. The name means “block of the faithful,” and the primary focus of the group became settling the West Bank, which Israel had been sitting on but not doing much else with since the Six Day War, seven years earlier. The Israeli government believed that they would most likely give the land back in some sort of peace deal at a later date, and had not expected to fully annex the land and incorporate it into Israel proper. However, this is exactly what they did with the Golan and East Jerusalem. Working at times with the Labor and Likud parties, other times in direct confrontation with the Israeli cabinet, the Gush set out from the mid seventies onward to settle in as many parts of the West Bank as they possibly could. As we shall later explore, the religious Zionists believe that the Jews must live in Eretz Yisrael in its entirety. Therefore, settling the West Bank in the hopes of conquering it for the Jews as part of their promised land is the first step. More must be said about their political ideology, however.
In essence, the political ideology of the Gush Emunim consists of five major tenets, all influenced by the earlier writings of Avraham Yitzchak ha-Cohen Kook, and more importantly by the divine decree issued in the Torah (which I will cover later). These tenets are Redemptions, Sanctity and Integrity of Eretz Yisrael, Revival of Zionism and Settlement, The State and the Rule of Law, and the Palestinian Question.
Redemption The Gush Emunim believe that the Jewish people live today (as they did when they were founded in 1974) in an era which marks the beginning of the redemption process described in the Torah. The rise of modern Zionism is the true evidence of this age, and the Gush believe it to be their divine role to continue this process and settle the entire land of Israel for the Jewish people. The West Bank, or as they call it Judea and Samaria, is part of the biblical Israel, they argue. Such redemptive goals give the Gush Emunim great confidence in their mission.
Sanctity and Integrity of Eretz Yisrael – The Jewish people and the land of Israel are one and the same. In other words, the entire land of Israel is holy, and it is therefore an inseparable spiritual part of the people. Judea and Samaria, the Gush Emunim argue, Jews cannot allow to fall into Gentile hands. In his essay entitled The Iceberg Model of
Political Extremism, Ehud Sprinzak writes: “It is a sacred duty to stand firm, to oppose pressures from the United States and other countries, to prevent the establishment of any Arab entity within the boundaries of the Land of Israel and to continue to assist the great process of redemption” ( Newman, p. 30).
Revival of Zionim and Settlement - Zionism died out after Israel was established, and Israelis therefore now live in a confused, unreligious stupor. Furthermore, Israel is becoming a materialistic and overly westernized country, losing touch with the Judaism at its core. The settlements, therefore, must be religious settlements, and the Gush Emunim are to lead the way towards a re-Judaization of secular Israel. Religious settlements therefore are to “represent the utmost achievement, the purest Zionist activity in every sense of the word” (Newman, p.31).
The State and Rule of Law - Israel and its institutions are legitimate mainly because they represent the will of God. Democracy is therefore fine as long as it does not interfere with Halakhic law and respect for religious authorities. However, should religious Zionism and Democracy collide (as they did when some Gush settlements were considered illegal), then Zionism should take precedence.
The Palestinian Question – The Land of Israel belongs to the Jews by Divine command. Therefore, the Palestinians have no legitimate claim for self - determination in the land of Israel. As for the Palestinians as individuals who live in Israel, “the Palestinian question is thus not a problem of a nation, but of individuals, and more precisely one of gerim (non-Jewish residents of Eretz Yisrael) who, according to the Torah are to be treated by the people of Israel with tolerance and respect, but no more” (Newman, p.32). Palestinians living in Israel, therefore, should only be granted full civil rights if they publicly recognize the legitimacy of the Zionist doctrine.
Hubert and Mauss write: “Fundamentally there is perhaps no sacrifice that has not some contractual element. The two parties present exchange their services and each gets his due” (Hubert and Mauss, p.100). By settling in the occupied territories, members of the Gush Emunim believe that they are holding up their end of the covenant made between Abraham and God in the book of Genesis. Applied to the modern day, the Gush must therefore settle the heavily debated West Bank and Gaza Strip, regardless of the Palestinian claim.
In Genesis 12:1-3, it is written: “Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, until a land that I will show thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shall be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3). In this promise, Abraham is being offered a great nation in a new land. The promise is very general, and does not include or exclude any parts of the contested territory that is Judea, Samaria, the Golan, or the Gaza Strip. The promises do get more specific though.
In Genesis 15:18 it is written: “In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” (Genesis 15:18). This promise is far more specific than the first promise, yet the land mass of which it speaks (from the Nile to the Euphrates) covers a vast section of the Middle East, of which Israel has never occupied nor has it ever even tried to. The Gush Emunim do not follow this promise literally with regards to what they consider to be modern Israel, but the “covenant” that is spoken of is extremely important. A covenant is a promise, a type of contractual agreement. God is promising Abraham and his descendants a large and great nation, blessed by God. In return, the Jews must worship Adonai alone, and do his mitzvoth. For the ancient Israelites, this sacrifice was to leave their homes, settle Canaan, obliterate the Canaanites who already dwelled there, and put all of their faith in God. For the Gush Emunim, they have agreed to settle in the volatile West Bank and Gaza, in return for God’s blessing. They see their predicament as being no different than that of the Israelites, at the gates of Jericho.
In Genesis 17:8 it is written: “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God” (Genesis 17:8). Canaan could be interpreted today as being all of the land that was once Palestine, which no doubt includes the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Similarly, Genesis 22:17 states: “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies” (Genesis 22:17). As the Gush Emunim might read this, “you may face tremendous hostility and danger from your Palestinian neighbors in Judea and Samaria, but stay there and suffer casualties, for you are doing my work, and will receive my blessing.” The Gush possess tremendous resolve in their belief and practice of settlement, believing the word of Torah to outweigh their fears of death.
Currently, there are 158 settlement in the West Bank, 16 in East Jerusalem, and 19 in the Gaza Strip. All of this the Palestinian Authority believes to be occupied territory. With the passing of Resolution 242 by the United Nations, they also support this claim. The issue of Israeli settlements is one of the major sticking points in the stalled peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Part of the cease fire plan created by George Tenet also calls for a complete freeze on Israeli settlement in the occupied territory. Osama Bin Laden cites Israeli occupation of Palestinian land as one of his major reasons for attacking U.S. and Israeli interests (although the validity of anything he says must be questioned). In 1999, at the Camp David talks between Ehud Barak, Yassir Arafat and Bill Clinton, Barak was ready to offer 95% of the West Bank to the PA to establish an independent Palestinian State in exchange for peace, although the offer was rejected. Many believe that even if Arafat had agreed, the Israeli Knesset would have voted against it. This is because far more people than the Gush Emunim alone support Israeli settlement in the West bank and Gaza Strip.
It is important to note that, along with these other territories, Israel also conquered the Golan Heights from Syria and the entire Sinai Peninsula from Egypt during the Six Day War. Aside from the grandiose land promises made in Genesis 15:18, nowhere in the Old Testament does it promise land so far north or so far south to the Israelites. Perhaps this is why, as part of the Camp David Accords in 1978, involving Menachem Begin, Andwar Sadat and Jimmy Carter, Israel was able to give back the Sinai (which did include some Gush Emunim settlements) to Egypt without excessive struggle with the settlers.
Members of the Gush Emunim did form an organization called Movement to Halt the Retreat in Sinai, but they attempted to sway the public with political arguments. Religious reasons held no sway regarding the Sinai Peninsula. Lustick writes: “Its propaganda and public statements instead focused on the security dangers that would be associated with the withdrawal, the undependability of Egyptian and American guarantees, and the contradiction of Zionist pioneering values that abandonment of the settlements would represent” (Aran, as quoted in Lustick, pgs. 60-61). Surely, if Israel ever makes peace with the Palestinian Authority, and agrees to evacuate settlers from the West Bank, the Gush Emunim will not simply launch a propaganda campaign. Civil War could certainly break out if Judea and Samaria were given back outright. Due to the nature of the communion sacrifice of the Gush Emunim, they believe that their interests affect the greater Israeli populace far more than many either realize or would like to admit.
Nancy Jay writes: “Communion sacrifice unites worshipers in one moral community and at the same time differentiates that community from the rest of the world” (Jay, p.19). The idea of a communion sacrifice ties in quite closely, I believe, with the almost untranslatable Hebrew word hitnahalut. The word refers to “a combination of settlement and messianism which requires that Jews return to the land out of religious obligation and cultural imperative. This is no ‘right,’ which can be bartered of forfeited; it is nothing less than a prerequisite to the Redemption” (Schnall, p.151). In other words, hitnahalut requires the Gush Emunim to settle their Judea and Samaria, regardless of both who lives there and what the rest of the world Jewish population wishes, because it will bring the age of the Messiah that much closer.
Getting back to the first precept stated in the ideology of the Gush Emunim, they believe that the Messiah is returning to redeem the long-abused Jewish people. The time is truly near, based on the fact that Jews already occupy much of the land of Israel. This fact gives the Gush Emunim great hope, as well as great frustration. How can the government sit on land promised to the Jews in the book of Genesis, and not settle it as was intended by Adonai? Did God not promise the land of Canaan to be the future home of the Jews? Biblically, the land of Canaan includes Judea and Samaria, which is, at least geographically, the heart of Israel. Therefore, The anticipation of the imminence of redemption galvanizes Gush Emunim into action” (Peleg, p.6).
Therefore whether or not Israelis vote on settling the territories is irrelevant to the Gush Emunim. Rabbi Moshe Levinger said: “Democracy can no more vote away Zionism, aliya, settlement, than it can vote that people should stop breathing or speaking. The fate of Eretz Yisrael and a free and whole Jewish life in it are not subject to a majority vote. At its roots our people know this. We are a people that is especially linked to a vision” (Levinger, as quoted in Schnall, p.151). It is the purpose of settlement right now to decide for a secularized, westernized Israeli population that has lost touch with its religious roots. Gush Emunim settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, then, must be done regardless of what is voted upon. Therefore democracy, according to the Gush Emunim, “is a reasonable regime, provided it exists within a truly Zionist system. Should the two collide, Zionism takes precedence” (Newman, p.33). Although the Gush Emunim has never become an entirely mainstream group in Israel, its members believe that the sacrifice of living in the occupied territories, no doubt making the Israeli/Palestinian conflict far worse, and costing many Israeli lives other than members of the Gush Emunim (such as countless IDF soldiers stationed in the territories to protect them), will eventually serve the Jewish people well.
Although the settling practices of the Gush Emunim are based solely on religious beliefs, they have also used modern techniques to make the Israeli people aware of the communion sacrifice they are making on behalf of them. First of all, the leaders of the movement, instead of living in the comfortable and safer confines of Tel Aviv and Haifa, and merely lobbying for their cause, live side by side in areas such as Hebron and Samaria. Thus, with the leaders and members working and living together in the trenches, the Gush Emunim has a leadership structure that is the envy of most other Israeli interest groups. Ehud Sprinzak writes: “It is hard to find a more authentic leadership than that of Gush Emunim and this is something which their ideological opponents must concede. It is a leadership of personal dedication and willingness to sacrifice, a leadership of responsibility” (Sprinzak, as quoted in Schnall, p.152).
The Gush Emunim have also tried numerous methods for attracting sympathizers. They have organized mass rallies in Jerusalem, marches, and most successfully, fundraisers. Often, American Jewish philanthropists are swayed by the Gush cause, and donate large sums of money for settlement.
Regarding the Israeli government, the Gush Emunim have worked both with (Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin, beginning with the emergence of the Likud in the late 70s), as well as against (settling illegally, contributing to the demise of the Labor Government after the Yom Kippur War) various coalitions that have been in place throughout Israeli political history since 1974. However, it is clear that there would not be anywhere near 158 West Bank settlement without the help of the funds allocated by the Israeli Knesset to bring about this reality.
As for the general secular public, I believe that the Gush use terrorist attacks to their advantage. After most devastating attacks on Israeli civilians in major cities such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, for instance the Sbarro suicide bombing and the attack on the Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv (both in the past year), the group responsible usually releases the same statement. Islamic Jihad and Hamas being the most prominent, these groups usually say things like: “until Israel removes itself from the occupied Palestinian land, these attacks will continue!” Studying abroad in Israel last year, it became clear to me that most young Israelis that I knew, whether religious or not, right wing or left wing, did not support trading land for peace. They believed that Israel would be giving up if it did so, and showing the world that terrorist attacks are an effective way of getting what you want.
Therefore, people would, by default, support the Gush Emunim and their settlement in the occupied territory. In fact, the Gush comes across as looking even braver at this point. In this way, the Palestinian terror groups are contributing to the communion sacrifice of the Gush, by bringing Israelis together, without meaning to. Ironically, it is because of the settlements, in large part, that these terrorist attacks occur, while concurrently it is because of these terrorist attacks that the communion sacrifice of the Gush actually works. Ariel Sharon then gets more public backing to respond in kind, which he gladly does.
“Whether it is the Assyro-Babylonian myth declaring that Marduk created the world by killing the monster Tiamat; or the Teutonic myth telling how Odin formed the world by raising the corpse of Ymir from the sea of Ymir’s own blood; or Pope Urban II declaring that God willed the first Crusade; or Thomas Jefferson saying that the tree of liberty must be periodically watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants; or Lenin saying you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs – cultures have forever commemorated some form of sacred violence at their origins and considered it a sacred duty to reenact it in times of crisis” (Bailie, p.7).
Although Gil Bailie stays away from the Bible in this quote (because he believes it to be a more sophisticated influence on human culture), the story in the book of Joshua describing the Israelites slaughtering the Canaanites must also fit into his example of sacred violence as a cultural origin. For the Jews, this mass murder can be seen as the sacred violence that first allowed them to dwell in the Promised Land. While most Israelis do not take the story of Joshua to mean that they may do the same thing to the Palestinians, many in the Gush Emunim do believe that this act of sacred violence may be used as justification. The Palestinians are the modern day Canaanites, and therefore the Gush may commit unspeakable acts against them to assure that God’s Promised Land becomes occupied by His chosen people.
The Book of Joshua begins with another specific land promise that God makes to Joshua. Like the “river to river” promise already discussed in the Book of Genesis, this promise encompasses more than even the most hard-line religious settlers demand. It says: “From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast” (Joshua 1:4). While Israel does stretch as far south as what I believe the Book describes as the coast (the Red Sea, Eilat), Israel certainly does not encompass all of Lebanon, although at one point Israel did occupy part of Southern Lebanon. This early promise fits nicely with Hubert and Mauss’s contractual sacrifice idea.
Early on in the Book of Joshua, the Israelites get a clear instruction from Adonai concerning what they must do to the Canaanites occupying their future homeland. It is written: “And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the Lord: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent” (Joshua 6:17). This attack will begin with the city of Jericho. The Canaanites stand in the way of a Jewish Homeland and establishment of Israel, and therefore they are enemies of the Lord. God decries death as their punishment, although they were not aware of their transgressions.
Thus the army of Joshua does just that, and wipes out ever Canaanite it finds in Jericho, except the harlot who helped the Jewish spies by hiding them, and her family. The story goes: “And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword” (Joshua 6:21). The fury of the Israelites, acting with God on their side, is so great that they kill even the animals of the Canaanites. Every living thing in the land of Canaan, before it becomes Israel, is not among those chosen by Adonai, and therefore must be destroyed.
The rest of the Book of Joshua describes the army of Joshua as it wipes out the established cities of Hebron, Debir, Judah, Gaza, Ashdod, and Gath, all the while uniting the loose band of Jewish tribes into the tribe of Israel. Some rabbinical scholars, Maimonides being the most prominent, have argued that the Canaanites were actually given a choice, instead of merely being slaughtered without a word.
As stated in the Gush background section, the organization believes in offering the Palestinians a similar choice: either flee, accept Jewish rule, or fight. Many Palestinians did flee during the War of Independence, and a far greater number did so during the Six Day War, assured by the Arab leaders that it would only be temporary, until the Jews were defeated. Instead, thanks to the Israeli victory and control over the West Bank, neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, and especially Jordan (over 50% of the population is Palestinian) are swamped to this very day with a huge refugee crisis. Thus, the right of return has been perhaps the greatest obstacle to a final peace solution between the Israelis and Palestinians. The PA wants full right of return for all displaced Palestinians who formerly resided in the West Bank and Gaza, while Israel claims (and rightfully so) that it simply cannot hold the millions of people to whom return is so desired. Some Arab countries have offered full citizenship to their Palestinian refugees, but few have accepted this offer. Perhaps this is because of Girard’s mimetic desire, in this case for the “Holy Land.”
Nevertheless, millions of Palestinians still reside in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Gush Emunim has clashed with them since the settlements began. Settlers are constantly shot at when returning to their homes, stoned, and generally harassed. The Gush Emunim, in both a response to the violence they face as well as in keeping with the tradition of the Book of Joshua, often have taken matters into their own hands, with radical vigilante acts.
Another of the major stumbling blocks on the road to a final peace solution is the fate of Jerusalem. The Jews control all of the city, although East Jerusalem is mostly Palestinian. In the Old City, the temple Mount (the biblical Mount Moriah) is one of the world’s most hotly contested sacred spaces. Originally the site of The Jewish Temple built by both Solomon and Herod, it was destroyed by Titus centuries ago. It is also the spot, allegedly, where Abraham came within seconds of sacrificing his son Isaac. For the Muslims, it is regarded as the third holiest site in Islam, behind Mecca and Medina, where Mohammad supposedly ascended to heaven in a dialogue with the angel Gabriel. The Muslims have their al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock up there, and the site is currently controlled by the Palestinian Authority, although the Jews have full access and control over the Western Wall (hakotel), which leads up to the western side of the mountain. Religious Jews are forbidden, by the Talmud, to walk on the Temple Mount. They believe that the Muslim shrines up there to be a defamation.
Between 1978 and 1982, members of the Gush Emunim who lived in the West Bank plotted to blow up the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. An army officer with much expertise about explosives as well as the layout of the site headed the operation, and stole enough munitions from the IDF to make the plot a reality. The plot was uncovered when twenty-five Gush activists were arrested on April 27, 1984, found to have placed five bombs under various Arab buses. Luckily this attack was thwarted at the last minute. These Gush members were also discovered to have been involved in the plot to blow up Haram el Sharif (the Arabic name for the Temple Mount, meaning Noble Sanctuary), as well as actually carrying out attacks which left five Arab mayors crippled, and a shooting spree at the Islamic College. The public was shocked to find out that the people arrested for these acts or attempted acts of violence were all mainstream Gush members, so very well-respected publicly. Yet where did they find the justification to do such a thing?
Yehuda Etzion, one of the leaders of this “Jewish Underground” as it came to be called, offers this response, issued from prison:
“David’s property in the Temple Mount is therefore a real and eternal property in the name of all Israel. It was never invalidated and never will it be. No legality, or ownership claim, that is not made in the name of Israel and for the need of rebuilding the Temple, is valid.
The expurgation of the Temple Mount will prepare the hearts for the understanding and further advancing of our full redemption. The purified Mount shall be – if G-d wishes – the hammer and anvil for the future process of promoting the next holy elevation” (Etzion, as quoted in Sprinzak, p.257).
Again, we come across this language about putting the redemption process above all rules of the land. Although not all members of the Gush Emunim took such a hard line as Etzion and the rest of the Jewish Underground, to many, winning back the temple Mount (Har Habayit to the Jews), as far as level of importance, is seen as tantamount to settling the West Bank. The response in Israel after all the arrests were made was not one of universal condemnation. Those sent to jail included “one rabbi (director of a religious school in Kiryat Arba), a former general secretary of Gush Emunim, a former member of Gush Emunim’s secretariat, the head of the Committee for Renewal of Jewish Settlement in Hebron, several officers in the army reserve, the son of one of the Gush founders, a Nejuda reporter, and a certified war hero” (Lustick, p.69). It became clear to the general public that such Gush figureheads as Moshe Levinger and Eleazar Waldman must have know about the attacks while they were being planned. Although the defendants all faced significant jail time, they were supported heavily during their trials by non-Gush settlers, as well as a large number of conservative Israelis.
Can this violence be seen as being so different from the acts of the Stern Gang and the blowing up of the King David Hotel by Zionists in the 1940s? At that time the major objective goal was the establishment of Israel. The members of the Gush Emunim believe that securing the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as reestablishing the Jewish temple in Jerusalem (although again, the Gush does not universally support vigilantism on the mountain), is simply the next logical step in bringing about the redemptive process. Just as the Canaanites were murdered in accordance with the wishes of Adonai, so too can the Palestinians and their holy sites face the wrath of Jewish fundamentalism in the modern day.
Aside from attempts to blow up the Temple Mount, Jewish extremists have opened fire on Muslims praying, and attempted to place a foundation stone for the new Jewish temple on numerous occasions. The first thing one sees when entering the Islamic Museum on the Temple Mount, before Muslim symbols or artifacts, is an encasement with pictures of 15 or so Muslims who dies when Jewish extremists marched to the Dome of the Rock in an attempt to begin building a new temple, and the Muslims praying there at the time rioted. The IDF, who are always stationed up there for “security reasons” opened fire on the crowd, killing some of the Muslims who were defending their holy site.
The Crossroads
This competition for sacred space sounds very much like what Gil Bailie and Rene Girard are speaking of when they cite “mimetic violence” as the root cause of all sacred violence. Bailie proclaims: “Mimetic desires have one exasperating quality: they can never be satisfied. This makes them more, rather than less, powerful” (Bailie, p.119). Clearly, with the situation in Israel spiraling out of control this last year, perhaps the author is right in suggesting that the sacred sacrificial system, which perhaps both fundamentalist Jews and Muslims are adhering to in an attempt to achieve their spiritual goals, is not working. Furthermore, the sacrifices offered by the Gush Emunim are not bringing the Jewish people together. Perhaps the nature of the covenant must also be reevaluated in an attempt to bring peace to the region.
The amount of violence and death that we have seen in the past year in Israel is arguably the worst, between the Israelis and Palestinians, that things have ever been. There is a terrorist attack from the Palestinian side seemingly every day, from a shooting at a military checkpoint to a widespread suicide bombing in the heart of Jerusalem. The Israelis respond usually within a matter of hours, blowing up PA police compounds, entering refugee camps with tanks, and generally humiliating the Palestinian Authority with their superior military might. The cycle of violence appears to be never – ending, and apparently neither side is willing to stop outright. Sharon insists that he wants peace, but will defend Israel from terrorist acts. In other words, he will not sit back while militant Palestinians who may or may not be aligned with Arafat kill Israeli civilians. At the same time, militant Palestinian groups such as Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades see Israeli assassinations of their leaders as direct calls for more terrorist acts. This violence, falling quite convincingly into Girard’s mimetic concept, needs to stop before there is ever peace and a lasting settlement between the two sides.
I believe that the Middle East, therefore, can be seen as a microcosm for the entire world with regards to the choice Bailie argues we have to make. Now that the militant Palestinians are getting hold of stronger and more devastating missiles (which the Israelis already have at their disposal), the bottom is closer to dropping out than many realize. The Israeli and Palestinian society may truly be facing the crossroad between apocalyptic violence and renunciation of violence.
The problem is that both sides believe that they are right, and that casualties they suffer are the true victims in the struggle. Girard writes:
“In reality, no purely intellectual process and no experience of a purely philosophical nature can secure the individual the slightest victory over mimetic desire and its victimage delusions. Intellection can achieve only displacement and substitution, though these may give individuals the sense of having achieved a victory. For there to be even the slightest degree of progress, the victimage delusion must be vanquished on the most intimate level of experience” (Girard, as quoted in Bailie, p.272).
Can there truly be any compromise with the Gush Emunim, who believe that what they are doing is commanded of them in the Torah? How about members of the Islamic Jihad, who feel that the Quran justifies their extremism? As Girard’s quote accurately notes, both believe that they are defending their people from vicious infidels aimed at crushing the will of God, whether Allah or Adonai. In light of the recent upsurge in violence, surprisingly, there are some promising signs among religious fundamentalists. I believe that for the peace process to truly begin (and I do not believe that it has as of yet), it needs to be the strong believers who first understand what Girard and Bailie are talking about.
At an interfaith prayer held in the Medigo forest in Israel, entitiled the “Bereshit Festival,” Muslim cleric Abed Mahmoud Abdel Al-Khader of the Western Galilee said: “I wish to bless the Jewish people on Rosh Hashana. We need to come together to build, not destroy; to love, not hate; to bring peace between Jews and Arabs for a shared future” (Gelfond, p.3). The chief Sefardic rabbi of Ramat Gan, Yitzhak Bardea, would later write: “It’s a paradox that it seems war happens because of religion. Judaism and Islam agree that all human life is holy” (Gelfond, p.4). A small group of religious leaders on both sides believe, in agreement with Bailie, that there will never be peace reached through diplomatic means without interfaith understanding as a prerequisite. After all, the acts of vigilantism and terrorism on both sides are carried out, almost exclusively, by religious fundamentalists.
Gil Bailie’s argument continues: “…we are now living in a world in which flagrant displays of righteous violence will increasingly fail to achieve ritual effects – even when they achieve their penal or military purposes – and that as a result, the society once made more peaceful by these policies will now be made more violent by them” (Bailie, p. 91). While the author would argue that only the Christian Gospels offer a valid alternative to a universal “way out” of the sacrificial violent system, I would challenge that Jews and Muslims must look within their own texts to find the alternative to violence. Whether or not they believe this violence to be righteously justified, they must understand that the modern world is not the same as the ancient world. For every act of collective murder and banishment in the name of Adonai or Allah, there is an act of tolerance and leniency described in the name of the Book. In these meetings between rabbis and sheiks, perhaps they are starting to see this.
As for the vast majority of Israelis, who are secular, there are also signs of hope that people wish to end this vicious cycle of violence. The 152 soldiers who recently signed a petition refusing to serve in the occupied territories are a perfect example of this. Even Ariel Sharon agreeing this week to change his policy of waiting until there is a week without incident to negotiate a truce represents an encouraging sign.
Perhaps if peace and compromise begins to become the desire of religious leaders on both sides, then mimetic desire can become positive instead of negative. Bailie claims: “…the mimetic passions include jealousy, envy, covetousness, resentment, rivalry, contempt, and hatred. The same powerful mimetic penchant that gives rise to these passions is responsible for humanity’s most laudable traits and most promising potentials. We humans are capable of learning, capable and sometimes eager to follow positive role models, and willing to emulate virtuous deeds, for example, all because of our mimetic propensities” (Bailie, p.112). Although we are creatures obsessed with imitation, if the Great Book “strict interpreters” modernize just a bit, then the desires of the Middle Eastern masses, quite possibly could be for things less material than land. The Palestinians should no doubt get a state in the West Bank, but both sides need to give, and keep in mind that peace is the most important settlement.
Israel, although populated by secular individuals on both sides of the battle, is a holy land. Although many (such as David Weddle) believe that sacred space is the root cause of religious persecution and conflict, believers from both sides would and do die to protect the physical land of Israel. Jewish fundamentalists such as the Gush Emunim, and Muslim fundamentalists from Islamic Jihad and Hamas are the foot soldiers in the Israeli/Palestinan conflict. Therefore perhaps members of these groups must first lean towards a renunciation of violence, before the policy makers and secular citizens follow. Most Palestinians do not want blood, they want a homeland. At the same time, most Israelis do not want to wipe out the Palestinians, they merely desire peace. Violence on the part of extremists on both sides make these facts easy to forget.
The only sacrifice that the Gush Emunim could possibly use effectively, for the greater good of the Israeli population, is a reinterpretation of the values they hold as their Ultimate Truth. Segments of the Torah calling for peace and tolerance can no longer be overlooked in their striving for Redemption. Perhaps modern Israel represents the modern realization of the Redemptive promise, and the Gush fail to see this, asking for more. The Jews, historically, have been has small numbers, and have faced much oppression. Now that Israel is a strong, highly self-sufficient nation, the position of world Jewry has forever changed. Israel and thus the Jewish people have the same responsibilities towards the good of the international community as other strong modern nations such as the United States. Efforts of the Gush Emunim towards a realization of Eretz Yisrael, then, must be seen in the modern day as counterproductive and anachronistic.
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“Shaking the Olive Branches.” Hadassah Magazine January 2002
Israel at a Crossroads: The Nature of Sacrifice in the History and Ideology of Gush Emunim
Paper by Sam Aronoff
Senior Seminar
Professor David Weddle
March 12, 2002
