"They Should All Rot in Hell - I"

The City of the Dead - Part 4

by Aron Trauring

I try to avoid as much as possible reading articles or listening to reports about the dismantlement of the settlements in Gaza. But you can't seem to avoid it. The amount of news coverage is astonishing.

It is almost impossible for me to look at this event from a political perspective. For one thing, I don't think anyone, least of all the architect of the event, Arik Sharon, has a clue what the ultimate consequences will be. Will this be the beginning of the end of the settlement project? Or is this one more tactical move in a bloody game that has been going on for decades?

More than that, this is an intensely personal story for me. It brings me back to my days in Hebron, the city of the dead.

In earlier installments, (Here and here) I wrote about how my encounters with the Settlers in Hebron had a profound impact on my view of the conflict. The Settlers are a small minority of the Israeli population. But their zealous beliefs and willingness to act on those beliefs, have totally changed Israeli society and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Israelis, by and large, are extremely pragmatic, almost shockingly so. Attend a wedding or funeral in Israel and you will be struck by the stark and practical nature of the affair (perhaps not as much now, as Israeli culture falls more under the sway of American kitsch). Israelis are direct and to the point. Yet scratch this practical exterior, and underneath you will find most Israelis have a sentimental core. They are suckers for schmaltz, particularly as it relates to the "innocent" days when young Zionist settlers came to Palestine to found a Jewish homeland.

I discovered this the first year we moved to Israel. On Independence Day we were strolling around the park in the town we lived in at the time - Rehovot. There were all kinds of (none-too-exciting) activities going on. Simcha, my then-wife, called to me to come over to a particular tent. "You will never believe what they are doing," she said. I came over, and my blood began to curdle.

When I was very young child, maybe 3 or 4, I remember when these cartoons would come on with the bouncing ball, urging you to sing along to some horribly smooth cornball song. Even at that tender young age I would be disgusted by this pathetic display of group kitsch-iness. But there in the tent, were Israeli adults - ADULTS!! -- their hard features softened, their eyes wet and glistening with tears, following the bouncing ball (you heard me right) glide across pastel colored slides with third-grade style drawings, leading them through a group sing of old songs from the early pioneering days of the Zionist movement. Argggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Some mystical traditions tell us that heaven and hell are only separated by the minds of the people who inhabit them. I have no doubt there is a room in the world to come, filled with Israelis who are in heaven singing their nostalgic tunes day and night. And in that room, there is a chair, with my name, waiting for me. My personal hell. It is for that reason alone I try to lead a righteous life.

When I refer to the Settlers I mean the ideological hard-core of the settlements project, not those Israelis who moved to the West Bank looking for cheap housing or immigrants who were put there by the government. These Settlers come from the Mizrachi "religious" Zionist movement. Unlike the more ultra-orthodox Haredim, they interacted with the broader secular Israeli society and shared many of its characteristics (including this demented love for shira b'tziboor). So when, after the '67 war, these religious Zionist lost their minds and believed the Messiah had come, they got in their head that they needed to hasten the coming of the end-of-days by bringing Jews to the newly conquered territories. Perhaps the pragmatic nature of most Israelis helps explain the general low opinion of religion and "religious" people Israelis have. Hence, had the Settlers tried to sell the Messiah narrative, it would have gotten nowhere. Instead, they acted in the grand tradition of all snake-oil salespeople. They appealed to the key personality characteristics of their audience. And, being part of the broader society until that point, they knew their audience well.

My youngest son pointed out some humor in today's New York Times: "Experts say that 9,000 settlers living amongst 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, is not strategically viable...." Experts say! And yet, to the pragmatic side of the typical Israeli the Settlers argued: "the settlements will enhance our security. Before the '67 war, the narrowest part of Israel was only 14 kilometers from the sea [we later lived at that point, in a town called Kokhav Yair]. By building out the settlements we will provide 'strategic depth' to our tiny country." Most Israelis (and American Jews for that matter) bought this security hogwash with nary a question (and as I noted elsewhere, I partially did as well, until I had army duty deep in the heart of the 'strategic depth').

Perhaps they succeeded, because those clever Settlers went beneath the practical surface and appealed to that mushy, nostalgic Israeli heart. They portrayed themselves as the new Halutzim - Zionist pioneers, harking back to the days when young people were willing to work the swamp-filled land, while living under the constant threat of malaria and Arab marauders (which perhaps explains why the early Halutzim wrote such horribly kitschy songs - they knew they wouldn't live long enough to have to actually sing them).

The Settlers played the guilt card as well. "You secular Israelis live the good, comfortable life in Tel Aviv, while we, in order to guarantee your security and the continuation of the Zionist dream (which you, in your fat-cat lives have seem to have forgotten), are willing to live in the harsh wildernesses of Judea and Samaria, and the dangerous refugee-filled hell-hole that is Gaza."

And so, hypnotized into temporary insanity, the secular Israelis of all political parties agreed to pour billions upon billions of dollars (mostly funded by apparently equally insane U.S. taxpayers) into the settlement projects. Ironically, while the secular Israeli back home could hardly afford to pay the mortgage on his tiny, cramped apartment in Holon or Petach Tikva, the Settlers had beautiful multi-story houses built for them at taxpayer expenses. While Israeli highways were jammed and pot-hole ridden because no money was spent to maintain them and no decent public transport system was in place, beautiful highways were built in the West Bank and Gaza for the Settler's benefit alone. While Israeli business people struggled to keep their business afloat, Settler businesses and farms received huge government subsidies to keep them going, even when they weren't economically viable.

Arik Sharon hardly fits the mold of the messianic, religious Settler. Why he got the settlement bug no one really knows. But given his nature, one can speculate that, rightly, he saw the Settlers and the settlement project as paving his road to the top of the political heap. I guess one talented snake-oil salesperson can recognize another. He added yet another sure-fire appeal to the settlement project --- greed. I have already told the story of how in 1985, sitting on the porch of a friends house in Rehovot, we told our friends we were considering buying a house in Kokhav Yair. "Why there?" said one. "You can buy one far cheaper in Judea or Samaria." This was the period where Arik Sharon, as housing minister, was encouraging mass movements to the West Bank through cheap, government-subsidized housing. Why live in a cramped apartment in Tel Aviv when you can own a home for less money (and feel like a Halutz) in the settlement of Ariel?

To which I replied, without thinking: "Because someday we will be giving back Judea and Samaria to the Arabs." I was hardly the flaming leftist then, but it just seemed so obvious to me. To which my friend replied: "You're a naive American. With one hundred soldiers we hold the whole of Gaza!"

Which brings us back round to the top. Apparently this naive American was right. And it gives me great pleasure to say: "I told you so." And yes it gives me great pleasure to see the Settlers uprooted from their homes. I know that is politically incorrect to say. Jewish leaders and pundits in the papers are intoning pious platitudes about how "we all feel the pain of the Settlers." We are told in serious tones that even if the disengagement is the right thing to do, it still is sad to see Jews uproot Jews from their homes. What utter bullshit. And here is why:

My encounter with the Settlers in Hebron was an eye-opener for me,. On their home turf they shed their salesperson persona, and revealed their true, ugly face. So besotted were they with their zealous messianism, they had no qualms about exposing their contempt for Israeli secular society, for democratic institutions and norms, and for secular ideals about human rights. They possessed the sole truth, and anyone who didn't share their beliefs was going to be road kill in the path of the triumphant march of the Messiah on his ass (tradition tells us the Messiah will enter Jerusalem on a donkey. Not surprisingly, the Settlers believe he will be riding on their backs). Their contempt for us soldiers, who daily risked our lives to protect them, was driven by their belief that the army was just a decrepit and corrupt arm of a decrepit and corrupt  government. Not that this belief is so far off the mark. I don't think too highly of the Israeli army myself. But being a lowly, sleepless soldier, constantly looking over your shoulder for a sniper bullet, one could hardly appreciate bearing the brunt of their insults. And one mustn't forget they were calling us soldiers Nazis nearly twenty years ago, when Yitzchak Shamir, an Israeli right-wing terrorist turned Prime Minister, led a government that made meeting with members of the PLO a crime and was quite blunt in its assertion that it would never give back any conquered territory to any Palestinian ever.

Even if a cause is hopelessly misguided or even immoral, one can often find something to admire. For example, whatever one can say about Hamas (and what good can you say about a group which encourages young people to blow themselves up in the midst of civilian populations?), even their most severe critics have to admit they are devoted to social justice in their community, live simple lives and fight the corruption of the Palestinian Authority. But the Settlers don't even have that to their credit. As  I noted earlier, they live like kings off the hard work of the rest of Israeli society. The billions of dollars poured into the settlement project was allocated through deceitful and corrupt practices, to bypass laws and governmental oversight. The Settlers, who orchestrated this corruption and directly benefit from it, have therefore played a huge role in leading Israel to receive the dubious honor of being declared one of the most corrupt countries among developed nations. As indicated in a study recently published by the World Bank:

"Israel is second only to Italy with regard to government corruption in the western world, according to a study released Wednesday by the World Bank. Business Data Israel’s (BDI) government corruption index showed the Israeli government to be inefficient, with high levels of corruption and a low rate of law enforcement. The study was based on indices examined and confirmed by the Bank of Israel. The rating received by the Israeli government is particularly poor in comparison with most developed countries. Its rating in terms of political stability is the lowest of any other Western country."

[N.B. On a positive note, one has to give great credit to Israel's incredible accomplishment that after a mere 57 years it already ranks among the world's developed nations.]

When our children were young, when they would say something like: "I hate brocolli!" Simcha would correct them and say: "Hate is a very strong word. You should say 'I don't care for brocolli.'" It should be quite obvious by now that I don't care much for the Settlers.

[To be continued]