A Struggle With Two Fronts

By Elyakim Ha’etzni

It is impossible to form a united front in the struggle for Judea and Samaria. The Yesha Council cannot work cooperatively with organizations like Homesh First.

It looks like the die is cast. Netanyahu has given Abu-Mazen everything he asked for even before negotiations commenced. He capitulated in his characteristic style: for outside consumption, he declared there will be no “prior conditions”, while agreeing in advance to every word of an American letter of guarantee to Abu-Mazen that will promise the Arabs the ’67 borders with “adjustments.” Once negotiations begin, the letter will be flourished and the two “innocents,” Benny and Bugi, will be told that it can’t be repudiated. They will then lead the rest of the Likud into the trap, as they did with the building freeze. If Netanyahu wasn’t engaging in deceptive games, he would tell the Americans that if they promise the Arabs the ’67 borders and Jerusalem up front, there will be no negotiations, because no sane Arab will take anything less than what the Americans already gave him. Therefore, the game is fixed: the Arabs won’t have to make even one thin concession, while the American payback to Israel – a guarantee of the Jewishness of the state – is a joke. What territories will Netanyahu be able to give up for the right to sing “HaTikva” or to bless the new moon?

MK Uri Ariel is calling on the public to overcome its apathy and to act now. As a first step, he proposes reconstituting the “Land of Israel Front”, which was an alignment of all the right-wing organizations with the Yesha Council. However, the “Land of Israel Front” was established before the great ideological fissure caused by the Expulsion.

Two interviews say it all.

Ex-Police Commander Moshe Karadi, one of the principal figures responsible for the Expulsion, explained its success as follows (Arutz 7, “Local Time”): “We couldn’t have achieved these results (completing the expulsion in six days) without having developed a working relationship between our leadership and theirs. I think the settlement leadership deserves our tremendous appreciation. Beyond the official discussions between the highest echelons of the security services and the heads of the settlers, there were informal meetings . . .in certain instances we allowed them to engage in acts like blocking roads, out of an understanding that they had to express their protest.”

Coordinated protest is, of course, fake protest. And, indeed, after the fact it was revealed that during the siege of Kfar Maimon, the Yesha Council allowed a plain clothed police officer to be present at its meetings. The tens of thousands of protesters who came to Kfar Maimon were told that the crowd would breach the fence and continue on to Gush Katif when the dispersal of the protesters had already been agreed upon with the police. After the whole Kfar Maimon campaign collapsed, those responsible for the farce revealed the ideology behind the theatrics: it would be unthinkable to “beat the IDF” and to undermine the authority of the state – even at the awful price of “disengagement”.

Pinchas Wallerstein, Director-General of the Yesha Council,* expressed this orientation as far back as Sept. 13, 2005: “Whatever it is, we’ll accept the decision of the people. We’ll go with the people of Israel no matter where it takes us, even if into exile.” Lately, in a meeting with the Upper Galilee Council, he said: “Our meetings with you, residents of the Galilee, changed a lot for me, including a readiness to accept the decision of the people on the matters closest to our hearts, that will in the future be brought to a referendum.”

Even if there were such a majority, which is not the case, Wallerstein’s approach is completely rejected by those who understand that the “the State above all” is a fascist mindset that allowed psychologists to brainwash the soldiers of the expulsion and to turn them into robots.

The foundation stone of democracy is the insistence that fundamental human rights trump both the authority of the state and majority rule. Among those fundamental rights, of course, is the right to protection from tyrannical expulsion and dispossession. In the State of the Jews, the historic Jewish right to the Land of Israel is also a foundational pillar that no government or majority can deny.

This conflict with the Yesha Council remains in place: Whoever sees the Peres-Barak-Netanyahu plan as a national crime and as a crime against humanity will call for resistance, disobedience, and for refusal to obey expulsion orders. He will declare that the government has crossed all red lines, and won’t wait for permission from Karadi’s successor to block roads. The people of “Homesh First” aren’t asking for permission to be in Homesh, whereas the Yesha Council won’t set foot there without a permit.

While the Hagana, the Irgun, and the Lechi brought about Israel’s independence jointly, historians only see this happy harmony of results in hindsight. In real time, an ugly and bloody civil war waged. In order not to repeat those mistakes, it would be better for each side to go their own way. Let there be no public arguments or recriminations and, whenever possible, let there be coordination.

Just don’t attempt the impossible: those who sanctify the state and majority rule at any price and those who refuse to tolerate forfeiting the Jewish right to the Land of Israel or human rights, can’t form a united front.

Take note, MK Ariel!

* On January 11, 2010, Pinchas Wallerstein resigned his position in the Yesha Council.