ON THE WORLD SCENE
ISRAELIS CONFRONT RISING RELIGIOUS FANATICISM (PART II): We may well be witnessing the beginning of a twin-pronged "holy war" mentality among religious extremists in the Middle East, within both the Islamic and Jewish communities.
In the Red Sea more than two dozen ships have struck mines. A group calling itself Islamic Jihad is claiming responsibility for having laid 190 mines in the key waterway. The little-known group (which also claimed responsibility for blowing up the U.S. marine barracks in Lebanon last year) was praised by Tehran Radio for aiding the Islamic struggle against "arrogant powers."
Although the government of Ayatollah Khomeini disclaims ties to Islamic Jihad — jihad means "holy war" — U.S. officials believe it nevertheless is an active supporter of it, in an attempt to spread its conflict with Iraq to a wider Mideast arena.
Meanwhile, in Israel, as we discussed last week, the specter of religious based terrorist activity is also rising. Last January, for example, mosque guards foiled an attack upon Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque, located on the Temple Mount. Grenades left behind by the attackers were similar to those used in assaults on other Moslem and Christian shrines in the preceding two months.
Sometime later, in March, four American Jews were charged with an attack with automatic weapons on an Arab bus on the West Bank. And in April Israeli security officers blocked an attempt by Jewish extremists to blow up Arab-owned buses in Jerusalem, in response to similar acts over the years by PLO terrorists. An Israeli security official planted within the ring of the suspected terrorist circle foiled the plot.
On June 18, the identities of 25 men were revealed who are alleged to be members of a Jewish terrorist underground. The June 19 JERUSALEM POST profiled all of them, many of whom were active members of Gush Emunim, the ultra-nationalist organization of Jewish settlers on the West Bank. They are all accused of planning or executing various terrorist attacks such as the 1980 attack on Arab mayors, the attempted bus sabotage and a 1983 attack on Islamic University in Hebron. Sixteen of the 25 were implicated in a plot to blow up the Islamic sites on the Temple Mount. One of the accused, Ya’ acov Heineman, had reportedly raised the idea of bombing the Temple Mount from the air. The idea was rejected by his cohorts who feared damage to the Western Wall.
The resorting to "terror against terror" by religious zealots is worrying many Israelis. One of these is Chaim Pearl, Rabbi Emeritus of the Conservative Adath Israel Synagogue of Riverdale, New York. He now lives in Jerusalem, where he is a writer and lecturer. In the June 13 issue of THE JERUSALEM POST, he penned an article entitled "Tora and Terror" (normally spelled Torah in the United States). Here are key excerpts:
The title of this piece brings together two opposites, but so joined they focus on a frightening situation, which deeply concerns many Israelis. Why is it that a large proportion of Orthodox Jews, particularly the youth, are identified with right wing and extremist militant sections of the Israeli community?
Not so very long ago the ideal picture of the Tora-observing and believing Jew was of one who had great room in his heart for the pursuit of peace. He took seriously the exhortation of the rabbis to be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace. Natural gentleness and piety would condition him to show tolerance and love of his fellowman.
Today that picture has drastically changed. Today the Orthodox Jew is frequently represented by a young man with full beard ... who totes a gun over his shoulder as he walks along the streets of the West Bank. Certainly, this new image of modern Orthodoxy can be favourably interpreted. It is possible to applaud it with joy and declare, "Here is the new Jew, brave and unafraid in his determination to defend Jewish life and property wherever the Jew chooses to settle — even in areas of the West Bank heavily populated with Arabs."
On the other hand, the new picture may represent a screaming and extreme militancy that proclaims, "The entire Land is mine, and God help anyone who tries to put the slightest obstacle in my way of keeping it." This interpretation, I believe, is closer to the full facts and therefore raises critical questions about the unavoidable permanency of war and about the place of religion in Israel. It is no coincidence that the leader of the Kach movement, who openly advocates clearing the country of Arabs, is an ordained rabbi....
The uncovering of an alleged Jewish underground, thought to have carried out some abominable acts, including the attacks on Arab mayors, killing of students at an Islamic college, and planting of bombs under Arab buses, has rightly outraged most Israelis. But with a few notable exceptions, the comments of religious leaders have been ominously platitudinous and even ambiguous, where they have been made at all....
Is there any way we can begin to understand this freak union of Tora and terror?... First of all, there is the motivation of the biblical record in which God's promise was made to the Children of Israel that they would inherit the Land.... Many religious Jews...are passionately wedded to the belief that after the victories of 1967, they would be sinning against God if they rejected His promise and did not take all the land that they had under their control.
They believe that the great religious destiny of modern Jewry is to regain all of biblical Eretz Israel. For a not insignificant number among them the Moslem mosques on the Temple Mount are not to be tolerated as a permanent feature of Israel’s national life, and there increasing talk of the possibility of the Third Temple. The first motive is thus fundamentalistically religious and pseudo-messianic....
Secondly, there is the new political thought that developed in the post-Holocaust age. The slogan "Never Again!" has taken root in the minds and hearts of many people.... One does not have to be Orthodox to be a proponent of Jewish survival, and many secularists have the same political philosophy motivated by the slogan "Never Again!" Yet it cannot be denied that the Orthodox Jew, by his very way of life, is consistently and more strongly committed to the issues of Jewish survival. Among the motivations that lead him to keep the laws is the fact that he knows that observance is a very strong guarantee for Jewish survival. When this determination to ensure his people's survival is extended to his right wing political philosophy, he recognizes it as a natural extension of his religious commitment, because his personal life is already conditioned by a discipline geared to the same end — Jewish survival.
Finally, there is a third point, which is not generally observed. This is the relatively large number of American immigrants, in comparison say with immigrants from other Western countries who are affiliated with right wing Orthodox militancy. The most extreme group of all, Kach, was started by an American, is led by former Americans, and is largely financed and supported by American sympathizers.
Something similar, though perhaps not quite to the same extent, is true of the Gush Emunim settler groups on the West Bank. Further, among those who are not particularly active in politics, I frequently find that Americans have some of the most articulated right wing militant views.
I don't claim to have the answers to explain this. One can perhaps understand an aggressive anti-Arab stance among Jews who came from Arab lands and who claim to "understand the Arab mentality." But we might have thought that former Americans, with their exposure to democratic values, sophisticated education and broader world outlook, would have all been more tolerant and more inclined to investigate an active programme for peace....
Perhaps the answer partly lies in the American history and settlement. In the U.S. guns are easily obtainable, and the streets in some big cities echo with violence. Perhaps a degree of this tough attitude has rubbed off on some American Jews and stayed with them as an emotional legacy.
A day earlier (June 12) in THE JERUSALEM POST, Chaim Pearl looked into the past for a dangerous parallel — the role of the Zealots in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. His article was entitled "The Perils of Zealotry." Again here are excerpts:
We are given a number of thought-provoking answers to the question of why the Second Temple was destroyed. One observation frequently emphasized in the literature is that the destruction was due to the internecine strife which fragmented the community into rival camps. That sin, [the rabbis] said, was equal in its gravity to the three big sins which the people committed during the period of the First Temple [idol worship, sexual immorality and murder]. However, while such a rabbinic insight may give us a glimpse into the social conditions and inner weaknesses of the community, it can hardly be accepted as serious historical comment....
The only substantial and reliable historical source is the work of Josephus, who was himself a leader of the Jewish revolt against Rome until he defected to the enemy and retired to Rome where he wrote his monumental WARS OF THE JEWS and ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS.
In spite of the prejudice which creeps into his account of the war against Rome, he is still the only authoritative historian of the period. If we were able to ask him the question the rabbis discussed, "Why was the Temple destroyed?" he would give the clear answer: "Because of the fanaticism of the Zealots."
By the time the Jewish revolt against Rome broke out in all seriousness, Roman power was invincible.... It needs little imagination to recognize that, of all the nations, tiny Judea was the least likely to be able to fight Rome with any hope of success.... But the Jews had the Zealots. And that made a big difference.
The Zealots were organized by Judah of Galilee in 6 BCE when Rome incorporated the Jewish state. Soon after, the Emperor Augustus ordered a census for the purpose of taxation. While the High Priest counselled submission so long as the religious life of the people remained undisturbed, Judah urged resistance and led his party of Zealots to reject the Roman demands and to harass them.
The Zealots proclaimed two clear principles: First, only God was master of the Jews. Second, it was tantamount to rebellion against God's teaching to provide the Romans with any part of the country's yield, since the land and its harvests were promised to the Jews by God.
Judah of Galilee was probably executed by the Romans, but the leadership continued in the control of his family. A son, Menahem, conquered the fort of Masada in the year 66, and a descendant, Eleazer ben Yair, led the desperate band of 1000 Jews in their subsequent futile struggle against Rome after the destruction of the Temple in the year 70.
It is clear that Josephus does not sympathize with the Zealots.... So, in his opposition to them, Josephus frequently refers to the Zealots of the Second Temple period as sicarii, dagger men. This is a distinctly pejorative term, the equivalent of "ruthless terrorists".... However, in spite of his dislike of the Zealots, Josephus does acknowledge their extraordinary courage and their acceptance of suffering for a cause which they consider righteous. He even recognizes their passion for liberty "which is almost unconquerable," and grants that their source of strength is their conviction that God alone is their leader and master.
But Josephus is also a realist.... In blaming the Zealots for their futile struggle, he also blames them, by clear implication, for the chain of events which led to the destruction of the Temple, the downfall of Jerusalem and the massive slaughter of the Jews....
From conjecture about the past one is led to consideration of the present. If Josephus was right and it was the Zealots who were chiefly responsible for the national disasters of their time, is it possible that the desperate spirit of extremism and pseudo messianic fanaticism which exists today among certain elements in modern Israel could because of future tragedy? Is it fair to ask whether modern zealots such as the Temple Mount fanatics, Kach extremists, Gush Emunim militants and Jewish underground activists could lead a gullible public into an emotional and aggressive nationalism and its corollary of permanent armed conflict, with an erosion of Jewish moral values and even Jewish physical disaster?
Of course, conditions are entirely different. Then, Rome was the strongest power in the world. Judea was the weakest .... But by the same token one can argue that conditions are completely different in other aspects also.... Instant communication and modern travel have made the world a smaller place than it was, so that what happens in one country is immediately known and affects many countries.
It has been said that peace is indivisible. So is war. That is why, in the long run, the world may not absorb or even tolerate the harsh realities of — an Arab-Israeli conflict with its timeÂbomb set to blow up the Whole Middle East, and then possibly the world....
Zealotry derives from a different set of values, far removed from reason and compromise. Zealotry has no room for doubt and is motivated by a burning passion for a single point of view. Zealotry generates hot power. But, like an overheated boiler, it can explode, with horrific consequences for everyone. Perhaps a straight line can be drawn from the Zealots in the period of the war against Rome to their counterparts in modern Israel.
And perhaps another straight line may be drawn between zealotry and jihad spawned violence in the Middle East to future European intervention in the region to put an end to the conflict before it gets out of hand.
— Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau
