From Anti-Zionism to Settler Post-Zionism
Shaul Magid, over at Tikkun, argues that the settler movement and Neturai Karta are equally anti-Zionist. What do you think?
There are arguably no two movements in Israel as disparate as the Settler Movement (known as Yesha) and Neturei Karta. Yesha represents the community of Israelis who live in the West Bank. It does not support a two-state solution and remains wed to a Greater Israel ideology that claims all of historic Erez Israel belongs to the Jews. Many, but not all, see Zionism in messianic terms, an idea promulgated by their patriarch Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook (1891-1982) and continued by his disciples to this day. continue reading here then come back and discuss.
This is total tripe. There are 700,000 Israelis living in settlements. They are represented by their elected Knesset leadership and local authorities. There is no “Yesha”. The Yesha Council is an unelected, unaccountable body. It’s no more representative of the settlers than the ADL is representative of American Jews. No one asked me what the ADL should do and how it should do it, even though it often implicitly speaks in the name of Jews. Sometimes I agree and sometimes I don’t. Same with the Yesha Council.
The settlers are no more monolithic than all gays are monolithic, or all blacks are monolithic. Stop drawing boxes around people. I personally know settlers who would be fine remaining in place and becoming Palestinian citizens in a peace deal, even some who want this to happen. I know settlers who would be happy to evacuate for compensation. I know settlers who want to secede and create a Kingdom of Judea (eyeroll).
Settlers aren’t any one anything, except people, as varied and human as any other. I don’t know a single settler who sees Zionism in “messianic” terms, and I know dozens and dozens, from deeply religious to deeply secular, hassidic to what we would think of as reform.
Just total tripe and ignorance, and really unacceptable in this day and age.