Hmmm, moving from a war of necessity to a war of choice and one viewed through the axis of good vs evil. Sounds familiar to me. I am near despair over the misguided fanaticism of the religious right whether it is Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Hindu. Enlightened religious communities and secular humanists must join together in Israel, Palestine, America, India, Pakistan, and throughout the world to counter the dogma of war and domination that we see in religious fundamentalists throughout the world."The officer corps of the elite Golani Brigade is now heavily populated by religious right-wing graduates of the preparatory academies," noted Moshe Halbertal, a Jewish philosophy professor who co-wrote the military code of ethics and who is himself religiously observant but politically liberal. "The religious right is trying to have an impact on Israeli society through the army."
For Mr. Halbertal, like for the vast majority of Israelis, the army is an especially sensitive institution because it has always functioned as a social cauldron, throwing together people from all walks of life and scores of ethnic and national backgrounds, and helping form them into a cohesive society with social networks that carry on throughout their lives.
Those who oppose the religious right have been especially concerned about the influence of the military's chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki, who is himself a West Bank settler and who was very active during the war, spending most of it in the company of the troops in the field.
He took a quotation from a classical Hebrew text and turned it into a slogan during the war: "He who is merciful to the cruel will end up being cruel to the merciful."
A controversy then arose when a booklet handed out to soldiers was found to contain a rabbinical edict against showing the enemy mercy. The Defense Ministry reprimanded the rabbi.
At the time, in January, Avshalom Vilan, then a leftist member of Parliament, accused the rabbi of having "turned the Israeli military's activity from fighting out of necessity into a holy war."
The Religious Control of the Israeli Army
Monday March 23, 2009
This seriously upsetting article in the New York Times Sunday paper chronicles the increasing influence of the religious right in Israeli's armed forces and its affect on the execution of the war on Gaza. Especially chilling is the quote from the Chief Rabbi of the military Gen. Avichai Rontzki who enouraged the slogan: "He is who is merciful to the cruel will end up being cruel to the merciful." What a convenient little motto that can be!
It reminds one of the power that the religious right also has in the armed forces in America. When religious hawks control our military mixing religious fervor with armed strength then every battle becomes one done in God's name and any means justify the ends. If every battle becomes a Holy War then we will have war without end. Here is an excerpt from the Times article written by Ethan Bronner:
Filed Under: Gaza, Gen. Avichai Rontzki, Golan Heights, Israel, Israeli Military, Moshe Halbertal, religion and politics, religion and war, Religious Right
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About Progressive Revival
Diana Butler Bass and Paul Raushenbush both stand firmly within the Mainline Protestant tradition and, along with guest bloggers of all religious backgrounds are dedicated to the revival of religious progressivism and its influence in American politics.
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Diana Butler BassDiana Butler Bass is a commentator and scholar in American religion. She is the author of seven books including A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009).
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Paul RaushenbushModerator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University.
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thank you for this article & your lucid
commentary.As far as "religious communities & secular humanists"
joining together - where do I sign up???
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