Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel

Religion plays an important role in the problems that afflict the Middle East. It isn't simply a matter of religion being used as a mask for political or ethnic strife - although that certainly happens quite a bit. No, in the Middle East religion itself can be a primary source of conflict and violence. It's not just Islam, either. There are hardened Jewish fundamentalists who are absolutely convinced that they have a divine mandate to take control over all the lands in the region as described in the Pentateuch - and that's a lot of land. Unfortunately, we don't hear much about this in the United States - whether it's an aversion to criticism of Jews or to criticism of Israel, many people are simply unaware of what Jewish fundamentalists believe, what they do, and more importantly what their goals are.

David Hirst writes about this in The Nation:

American Jews, especially Orthodox ones, are generous financiers of the shock troops of fundamentalism, the religious settlers; indeed a good 10 percent of these, and among the most extreme, violent and sometimes patently deranged, are actually immigrants from America. They are, says Shahak, one of the "absolutely worst phenomena" in Israeli society, and "it is not by chance that they have their roots in the American-Jewish community." It was from his headquarters in New York that the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the late Menachem Schneerson, seer of possibly the most rabid of Hasidic sects, the Chabad, gave guidance to his many followers in both Israel and the United States.

Like fundamentalism everywhere, the Jewish variety seeks to restore an ideal, imagined past. ... [T]he Jewish Kingdom ... would elevate a stern and wrathful God's sovereignty over any new-fangled, heathen concepts such as the people's will, civil liberties or human rights. It would be governed by the Halacha, or Jewish religious law, of which the rabbis would be the sole interpreters, and whose observance clerical commissars, installed in every public and private institution, would rigorously enforce, with the help of citizens legally obligated to report any offense to the authorities. A monarch, chosen by the rabbis, would rule and the Knesset would be replaced by a Sanhedrin, or supreme judicial, ecclesiastic and administrative council. Men and women would be segregated in public, and "modesty" in female dress and conduct would be enforced by law. Adultery would be a capital offense, and anyone who drove on the Sabbath, or desecrated it in other ways, would be liable to death by stoning. As for non-Jews, the Halacha would be an edifice of systematic discrimination against them, in which every possible crime or sin committed by a Gentile against a Jew, from murder or adultery to robbery or fraud, would be far more heavily punished than the same crime or sin committed by a Jew against a Gentile--if, indeed, the latter were considered to be a felony at all, which it often would not be.

All forms of "idolatry or idol-worship," but especially Christian ones (for traditionally Muslims, who are not considered to be idolaters, are held in less contempt than Christians), would be "obliterated," in the words of Shas party leader Rabbi Ovadia Yossef. According to conditions laid down by Maimonides, whose Halacha rulings are holy write to the fundamentalists, those Gentiles, or so-called "Sons of Noah," permitted to remain in the Kingdom could only do so as "resident aliens," obliged under law to accept the "inferiority" in perpetuity which that status entails, to "suffer the humiliation of servitude," and to be "kept down and not raise their heads to the Jews." At weekday prayers, the faithful would intone the special curse: "And may the apostates have no hope, and all the Christians perish instantly." One wonders what the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons think of all this; for it is strange, this new adoration by America's evangelicals of an Israel whose Jewish fundamentalists continue to harbor a doctrinal contempt for Christianity only rivaled by the contempt which the Christian fundamentalists reserve for the Jews themselves.

What do the "Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons" think? They think that Christians prophecies of the conversion of Israel and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ probably make the plans of Jewish fundamentalists irrelevant. Even if they last long enough to put those plans in place, everything will be overturned by Jesus in the end anyway, so who cares if they get to play at ruling for a little while? The restoration of Israel is foretold in the prophecies and if that means trampling on some people's rights in the process, no big deal. It's God's Will, after all.

The fundamentalists have grown to as much as a quarter of the Israeli population, but they are a much higher percentage of settlers and have a lot more influence than the raw numbers suggest. This isn't simply a matter of Jews who a conservative and traditional in their religious beliefs, although they both work together on some common causes, but rather extremist Jews who have a very radical vision for the restoration of ancient Israel.

Read More:

• Fundamentalism
• Religious Intolerance & Bigotry