Combined forces from the Israeli Army, the Border Police, and Security Services today evacuated a house in Hebron that was, according to the Israeli Supreme Court, illegally occupied. Things did not go well. From the storming of the building by those serving the evacuation order to the rampage by both those within the building and other settlers in town which followed, it was quite ugly. And having once been a Hebron settler, I appreciate just how ugly it can get and even how both sides contribute to the ugliness.
But there is one very important difference between the two groups. The settlers were in violation of the law and have been told to leave for weeks. In that sense today was victory for democracy in Israel. It may not be a happy day or an easy day, but is an important day. No country can fight against the religious fanaticism which undermines the rule of law in other nations, if it fails to so in its own.
As Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak said: "We will not allow extreme elements to undermine the authority of the state and its foundation." K'nesset member, Avshalom Vilan added, "This was a test for the rule of law and it shows there is one law for everybody for people in Hebron, Tel Aviv and everywhere."
Settler leader, Danny Dayan did make an important observation about the guilt that may be born by those who ordered the evacuation to be carried out in this way, saying "Barak chose violence; he threw a match in a pile of gun powder."
Given that more of these evacuations are likely in the future, it bears thinking about whether sufficient efforts were made to resolve the situation with the kinds of empathic conversations between soldiers and settlers, which often avoided the need for violence when Gaza was evacuated a few years ago.
At the same time, settler leaders should ask themselves about their own responsibility for not only breaking the law, but for creating the stockpiles of gunpowder, both literal and figurative, to which Dayan refers. If they will not, then the guilt theirs for creating a situation in which any reasonable soldier can presume that he is a target for citizens of his own country, and responds accordingly.
I look back on my time in Hebron as both wonderful and terrible. I believe that staying there is impossible without violating the values of the tradition which brought me there to begin with. But I also know that as we leave, we should weep over the need to rid an area of all its Jews in order to maintain a Jewish commitment to peace.
The real challenge, especially if either side genuinely hopes to avoid a repeat performance of today's violence (an open question in my mind), is twofold. We must help those who know we need to leave Hebron, actually weep over the necessity of doing so and help those who would cry about leaving, to do so without fomenting a civil war. Let's hope for that conversation to begin before the next court-ordered evacuation.
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Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
Rabbi Hirschfield,
I attended a meeting of the local Jewish Federation last night and the speaker there, Dr. Cohen, PhD, lately of the State University of New York at Buffalo spoke a small bit about why Muslim extremists hate Jews. He left out talking about Christians because of the immediate threat of Muslim extremists and the different issues affecting Jewish-Christian relations and Jewish-Muslim relations. He said that Muslim extremists hated Jews not because they had land. They hated Jews before they had any land, and that they didn’t hate Jews because they were rich. They hated the Jews when they were poor. Rather, they hate Jews because Jews stand for morality. Not that all Jews are totally moral in everything that they did, no, but Jews stand for morality in a world that isn’t so fond of morality despite what so many say. I wonder if you could comment a bit on this Rabbi Hirschfield. Thanks.
Perhaps you can get the facts first, before you decide who needs to change. Here's a letter that Naomi Ragen put out which gives a different twist on what happened. One might want to check out Israel national news.com as well, because they report everything that everyone else conveniently leaves out.
Friends,
I think the way that the Israeli government, especially the Defense Minister
Ehud Barak, handled the Peace House conflict in Hebron was disgraceful.
Peace House was legally purchased by Jews, until proven otherwise in the
Supreme Court. The Court did not ask for the Jewish owners to evacuate
until it makes its final decision, this was decided by the politicians for
reasons that can only be seen as politically motivated to curry favor with
leftist voters. The ensuing violence on all sides in the city of Hebron was
a direct result of this decision and the subsequent unnecessary and
excessive use of force to see it carried out. Like the disengagement, the
government of Israel, in the hands of delusional leftists, has perpetrated a
tragic misuse of power against its own citizens.
The letter below, from the Toronto Zionist Council, is absolutely correct.
Naomi Ragen
_____
The Following Letter Was Faxed to Israel's Ambassador and Consul to Canada:
December 5, 2008
The Honorable Ambassador of Israel,
Her Excellency Miriam Ziv, Ottawa, ON
And The Honorable Amir R. Gissin,
Consul General of Israel, Toronto, ON
We are writing this letter on behalf of Toronto Zionist Council. We are
appalled by the continued anti settler venom being spewed forth by Defense
Minister Ehud Barak and other ministers and the brutal attack that expelled
the residents of Beit HaShalom, a building which was purchased 100% legally
by Mr. Morris Abraham.
How dare Mr. Barak allow the forces under his command to use stun grenades
and tear gas against Jews - men, women and children - who were living
peacefully and legally in a building in the Jewish homeland! How dare he
have the audacity to say that the state must enforce the High Court decision
to evict them, when he knows very well that the High Court issued no such
ruling!
Mr. Barak needs to be stripped of his position as Defense Minster at once,
for his illegal and immoral actions against our brethren in Beit HaShalom .
With Jewish blood being spilled like water in Mumbai at the hands of the
very same terrorist murderers who threaten our brethren in the State of
Israel every single day - and while Hamas missiles continue to terrorize
southern Israel, it is hard to believe that Mr. Barak can waste precious
Israeli soldiers and Israeli police - that are needed to safeguard the
population everywhere - and sending them instead to Hevron to evict Jews who
posed no threat anyone - from their home..
He has a sworn duty to protect the lives of all our brethren in Israel and
not just those people who support him politically. We demand that Mr. Barak
cease and desist from his war against the settlers in general, and the
residents of Beit HaShalom in particular!
I am sure you are acquainted with the lethal ambush which resulted in the
massacre of 12 Israeli soldiers - that the Arab friends of Barak perpetrated
not that long ago - on the very same road, "Worshiper's Way" where Beit
Hashalom is located and how pleased the IDF was when it was disclosed that
the building was finally in Jewish hands, thus making easier their task of
protecting the visitors going to Machpela Cave, the burial place of our
Patriarchs.
We said it before, and we will say it again and again until this selective
oppression STOPS! We will not stand idly by and watch the government of the
State of Israel treat our brethren like this.
Our organization was the driving force in staging two very successful
"Israel Malls" in Toronto during the worst times of the 'Intifada' when
tourists were avoiding Israel and the merchants on Midrachov Ben Yehuda (and
other shopping centers) were standing in front of their stores trying to
entice the few pedestrians to come in and buy something.
Your government should wake up to the fact that Israel's only true friends
in the world are the Zionist Jews of the diaspora. With the blatant lies
that some government ministers spread about the residents of Yehuda and
Shomron, the deliberate provocations against them, their labeling true
Jewish patriots and pioneers as 'internal enemies of the state', and the
illegal and brutal expulsions, all they will accomplish is alienating us and
all other supporters of Israel.
If this persecution and abuse of our brethren won't stop, we will start a
campaign to withhold all monetary support while this government is in power.
Instead we will advise everyone to channel that money to help our brethren
who are being made to suffer by Ehud Barak. He - and others of his ilk - see
the handwriting on the wall; that their political careers will be over after
the next elections - unless they manage to start a civil war before then.
Please use your positions to influence the few decent people still left in
the government that this should not happen!
Sincerely,
Toronto Zionist Council, Yossi Winter, Pres. Izzy Kaplan Vice Pres.
------------------------------------------------------
Contact numbers for Israeli Embassy:
Phone: (613) 567 6450
Fax: (613) 237 8865
Toronto Consulate:
Phone: (416) 640 8500
Fax:(416) 640 8555
You are wrong on both fact and principle in this matter. The fact is that the residents of the house have been living there for years despite the refusal of permits to install window glass in the winter and so forth. They have written and recorded documentation of the legitimate sale of the house.
ALL settlers over the Green Line are being regularly provoked by police and army pogroms and abuse (including sexual abuse of the females) as well as media and political demonizationa an dehmanization. The Gush Katif protesters were brutalized. Oops, so sorry. The Amona protesters were brutalized. Oops, so sorry. The police who took part in this action wore no nametags, (ILLEGAL, where is your rule of law?) having been filmed at Amona. They know that religious Jews will not use violence and firearms against Jewish police. On the other hand, in the film of the 'settlers' firing on 'Palestinians', the portion showing them being attacked by rocks is not prominent, and the 'injured' Arab gets up from the ground with no visible distress and resumed throwing rocks. Guess the settler didn't shoot that straight.
The rule of law in the absence of morality is Fascism. Resort to that principle is the first resort of intellectual and moral laziness. it was the song of the phony Reform 'Zionists' and the Jewish Agency against Jews have been suffering and dying from the rule of law great and small for centuries, culminating in the lawful Greek and Roman and Islamic invasions, the lawful Crusades and Inquistions and pogroms, the lawful Warsaw Ghetto, the lawful genocidal actions of exclusion from Palestine and the lawful extermination camps. The international law of human rights was written as an outcome of the previous 'law', but there are no human rights, civil rights, or national rights for Jews in Judea.
How can any law exclude Jews from Hebron? Why can no Jews live in Southern Lebanon, Jordan and Yesha, all parts of Eretz Yiroel? Jews were forcibly evicted by the British and Arabs in 29 and 36 from Hebron. There are arab residents of Hebron alive who participated in the atrocities perpetrated on the Slobodker Yeshiva and Jewish residents of Hebron in 29. The Arab market built on top of Jewish property. The present government of Israel is fascist in this matter. Let the left say what Jews and under what conditions ANY Jew can live in Hebron, other than the consent of everyone else in the world opposed to the Jewish nation and cause. Let them say which Arabs and under what conditions some Arabs may NOT live in Hebron. The Arabs call the Machpela the 'Ibrahimi' Mosque, and when given entree into it desecrate and urinate on the Jewish areas.
Perhaps if you were to refreame your thinking to say that Hebron is a Jewish place, and it is not an Arab place despite the historic injustice that restricted and excluded Jews from living there, you would qualify to opine on the recent events.
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