The Unmaking of Israel (33 page)

92
“commandment of settling the Land”:
Filber 32.

92
deep in occupied territory:
Newman, “Territorial Politics” 65–66.

93
settlers and ultranationalist faith:
David Newman, ed.,
The Impact of Gush Emunim: Politics and Settlement in the West Bank
(London: Croom Helm, 1985): 20.

93
as a “community settlement”:
OA 6/5, “Doh Tzevet Hahityashvut Shel Gush Emunim” (Gush Emunim Settlement Team Report), autumn 1975, 12, identifies Ofrah as a community settlement (
yishuv kehilati
), before other Gush Emunim settlements were established. David Newman and Leviah Applebaum, “Hakfar Vehayishuv Hakehilati Mera’ayon Lemetzi’ut,” in Shvut,
Ha’aliyah El Hehar
157–58, states that the concept was developed that year by planner Uzi Gdor.

94
“closed” and “homogenous”:
OA 6/5, “Doh Tzevet Hahityashvut Shel Gush Emunim,” 7–11; DC 145,
Tochnit-Av Lehityashvut Yehudit Biyehudah Veshomron
(Master Plan for Jewish Settlement in Judea and Samaria), an early, undated Gush Emunim plan for widespread settlement in the West Bank, adopts the Ofrah outline in its entirety.

94
criterion for membership:
NTA Hakamat Hayishuv 1977, doc. 29, Hakamat Hayishuv 1978, doc. 36, Hakamat Hayishuv 1979, doc. 20. According to one early Ofrah settler, families asking to join the community had to commit themselves to observe the Sabbath and to “family purity,” the religious rules prohibiting sexual intercourse during menstruation.

94
boarding schools in settlements:
DC 145 17. The plan endorses an existing trend: Yeshivot had already been established in the Etzion Bloc and Kiryat Arba.

95
up to 20 percent:
HCJ 11163/03, sec. 20; Eyal Hareuveni,
By Hook and by Crook: Israeli Settlement Policy in the West Bank
(Jerusalem: B’Tselem, July 2010): 42.

95
nearly twice as much:
Central Bureau of Statistics,
Statistical Abstract of Israel 2010
, table 12:14. (The Israeli population as counted in CBS figures reflects the blurring of borders: it is the sum of all people living in pre-1967 Israel, annexed East Jerusalem, and the Golan, plus Israeli settlers living in the West Bank.)

96
“be an Arab government”:
Lea Sklar, interview.

IV. Children of the Hills

98
“fruit of the land”:
Numbers 12:30.

98
“a time to uproot”:
Ecclesiastes 3:2.

98
“forgotten their Jewish identity”:
Handbill found on 28 Oct. 2009. The lack of an author’s name is presumably intended to hinder a police investigation.

99
here-and-now inhabitants:
Genesis 13:7. The rabbinic gloss appears in
Breshit Rabba
40:7, and in Rashi’s commentary on Genesis 13:7.

99
adultery into a ritual:
Gershom Scholem,
The Messianic Idea in Judaism
(New York: Schocken, 1971): 109–14. In
Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973): 387, 669–71, 880, Scholem also brings testimony that Shabtai Tzvi himself encouraged his wife to attempt to seduce another man, and that he engaged in intercourse with a boy while wearing phylacteries.

99
tribal, as religious doctrine:
Aviezer Ravitzky,
Haketz Hameguleh: Umedinat Hayehudim
(Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1993): 188–90.

100
“holiness into the world”:
“Ha’atar Shel Shvut Ami,” http://svotamy.fav.co.il/index.php , acc. 16 Nov. 2010.

100
harvested and stolen:
“35 Tree Vandalism Cases in 6 Weeks,” 31 Oct. 2010, joint statement by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, B’Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights, and Yesh Din.

101
lack Jewish consciousness:
This list is taken partly from Roi Sharon, Amir Rappaport, and Amit Cohen, “No Man’s Land,”
Ma’ariv
, 11 Aug. 2008: B8.

102
to make the arrangements:
Itai Zar, interview. Tadia Sasson,
Havat Da’at (Beina’im) Benose Ma’ahazim Bilti Murshim
(Opinion Concerning Unauthorized Outposits) (Jerusalem, 2005), appendix 1:16, identifies the land as private, belonging to Far’ata residents, adding that the military appeals committee approved registering it in the name of Har Vegai, a company owned by Moshe Zar. The description implies that Far’ata residents unsuccessfully challenged Zar’s claim before the Israeli committee. As of 2005, when Sasson wrote her report, Zar had not submitted the land survey needed to complete the registration. In 2009, Itai Zar told me registration had yet to be completed.

102
pattern of the outposts:
Sharon never regained consciousness after his 2006 stroke; Hever has not granted interviews for years. Amana, legally registered as a cooperative, is not required to make its financial papers public.
Ha’aretz
military correspondent Amos Harel reported, “Officers well versed in the twisted process of setting up an outpost believed that in the vast majority of the cases, Sharon was an active partner in formulating the plans, as well as selecting the location and the timing.”
Ha’aretz
, 16 May 2003, www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/inquiry-into-dummy-outpost-reveals-a-complex-picture-1.9961, acc. 27 May 2003. On Hever’s role, see Sara Leibovich-Dar, “Ma’ahazei Zambish,”
Ha’aretz
, 10 July 2002, www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml?itemNo=185396, acc. 15 June 2010.

102
illegal several times over:
Sasson,
Havat Da’at
, appendix 1:16.

102
main settler leadership body:
Ynet, 20 Oct. 2002, www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-2189016,00.html, www.ynet.co.il/articles 0,7340,L-2/191134,00.html, acc. 15 Nov. 2010. Over the years, Havat Gilad has been the locus of several other confrontations between settlers and security forces.

102
only by religious law:
Itai Zar, interview.

104
“force, might and beatings”:
“Israel Declines to Study Rabin Tie to Beatings,”
New York Times
, 12 July 1990.

104
stopped by military means:
Yaakov Perry, interview.

106
collaborators with the Nazis:
Nachum L. Rabinovitch, “Generals, Jews and Justice,”
Jerusalem Post
, 27 Dec. 1993. In “Pekudah Bilti Hukit,”
Gilyon Rabbanei Yesha
18 (25 Iyar 5754 [6 May 1994]), Rabinovitch compared government evacuation of settlers to the Nazi Nuremberg Laws. Rabinovitch’s yeshivah belongs to the
hesder
program, in which young men alternate between religious studies and shortened military service (see chap. 5 below). The yeshivah continues to receive funding from the Education Ministry; see www.tmichot.gov.il, acc. 21 Nov. 2010.

106
capital punishment for blasphemy:
Nachum L. Rabinovitch,
Gilyon Rabbanei Yesha
28 (Tishrei 5756 [Sept.–Oct. 1995]): 2–3. The medieval texts, it should be noted, refer to a court-imposed punishment, not to an act by an individual zealot. After the assassination, Rabinovitch was questioned on suspicion of inciting to murder, but was not charged. Yair Sheleg, “Et Hakesher Harabbani Lo Hakru,”
Haaretz
, 3 Nov. 2005, www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtSR.jhtml?itemNo=641407, acc. 21 Nov. 2010.

106
“asunder before their eyes”:
Dan Be’eri, “Shuv Ha’Saison’ Bapetah,”
Nekuda
, March 1994: 22–26.

107
as a hero and martyr:
Gershom Gorenberg,
The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount
(New York: Free Press, 2000), 203–8.

107
law student Yigal Amir:
The Jerusalem Report Staff,
Shalom Friend: The Life and Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin
(New York: Newmarket, 1996): 226.

107
“to love all Jews”:
Jerusalem Report Staff,
Shalom Friend
247.

108
concrete mixers worked overtime:
Deborah Sontag, “Barak’s Ministry Outpaces Netanyahu’s on New Settlements,”
New York Times
, 28 Sept. 1999, www.nytimes.com/1999/09/28/world/barak-s-ministry-outpaces-netanyahu-s-on-new-settlements.html, acc. 7 July 2009; Benny Morris, “Camp David and After: An Exchange (1. An Interview with Ehud Barak),”
New York Review of Books
, 13 June 2002, www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2002/jun/13/camp-david-and-after-an-exchange-1-an-interview-wi/, acc. 18 Jan. 2006. Morris paraphrases Ehud Barak as saying he “allowed the expansion of existing settlements in part to mollify the Israeli right, which he needed quiescent as he pushed forward toward peace.”

108
from 116,000 to 198,000:
Dror Etkes, “Gidul Ha’ukhlusiah Hayehudit Bagadah Hama’aravit Uretzu’at Azzah,” 11 March 2003 summary of Central Bureau of Statistics figures.

108
surely figures as one factor:
See Deborah Sontag, “Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why It Failed,”
New York Times
, 26 July 2001; Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, “Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors,”
New York Review of Books
, 9 Aug. 2001.

109
areas of East Jerusalem:
Central Bureau of Statistics, “Population of Localities 30.06.2010 (Provisional Data),” www.cbs.gov.il/population/new_2010/table1.pdf, acc. 22 Nov. 2010; B’Tselem, “Ha’ukhlusia Bahitnahaluyot Bagadah Hama’aravit Lefi Shanim,” www.btselem.org/Hebrew/Settlements/Settlement_population.xls, acc. 27 Sept. 2010.

109
“what portion . . . is allocated”:
State Comptroller, Report 54b (2003): 309.

109
“than the [Mordechai] Vanunu affair”:
Gershom Gorenberg, “Settlement Flurry,”
Jerusalem Post
, 3 Dec. 1986.

110
an unnatural cash stimulant:
Dror Tzaban,
Omdan Helki Shel Taktzivei Memshalah Hamufnim Lehitnahaluyot Bagadah Hama’aravit Ubiretzu’at Azzah Veshel Tiktzuv Ha’odef Bishnat 2001
, January 2001; Hareuveni,
By Hook and by Crook: Israeli Settlement Policy in the West Bank
(Jerusalem: B’Tselem, July 2010): 37–47; Yehezkel Lein, interview; Gershom Gorenberg, “At What Price,”
Mother Jones
, July–August 2003: 42–49.

111
livelihood of one’s choice:
Hok Yesod: Kvod Ha’adam Veheruto, 1992; Hok Yesod: Hofesh Ha’isuk, 1992.

111
contradicted a basic law:
CA 6821/93,
Bank Mizrahi v. Migdal Kfar Shitufi
, www.nevo.co.il/Psika_Word/elyon/PADI-NH-4-221-L.doc,acc.22 Nov. 2010.

111
receiving the largest benefits:
HCJ 116/03; Hareuveni,
By Hook and by Crook
38–39; Yehudit Karp, “I-Tziut Hamedinah Lefiskei Shel Batei Hamishpat,” letter to Attorney General Yehudah Weinstein (undated, received by Weinstein 7 Feb. 2010).

112
the breakdown is classified:
Tzaban,
Omdan
; Dror Tzaban, interview.

112 “
in the post-1967 era”:
Shlomo Swirski,
The Burden of Occupation: The Cost of the Occupation to Israeli Society, Polity and Economy, 2008 Update
(Tel Aviv: Adva Center, 2008): 61.

113
to the prophet Muhammad:
Ahmad Agbariya, interview, citing the hadith, “Mamuna said: ‘O Messenger of Allah! Inform us about Bayt Al-Maqdis [Jerusalem]!’ He said: ‘It is the land where people will be gathered and resurrected [on the Day of Judgement]. Go and pray in it, for a prayer in it is the equivalent of a thousand prayers in other [mosques].’ ” (The hadith appears in the classic collections Abu Dawud, Sunan 467; Ibn Majah, Sunan 147; Ahmad Ibn Hanba, Musnad 6/463; Al-Bayhaqi, Sunan 2/441. My thanks to Mustafa Abu Sway, A. Rashied Omar, and David Cook for locating the material.)

113
Intifada had been ignited:
I deliberately stress the deaths following Sharon’s visit as more inflammatory than the visit itself. In Oct. 2000, a senior Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told me it would have been better to schedule Sharon’s visit for the beginning of the week rather than a Thursday, allowing time for Palestinian anger to dissipate before Friday prayers. The official did not mention the police failure to learn from previous incidents at the Mount that nonlethal crowd control methods were vital.

113
However
spontaneous its eruption:
The 2001 Mitchell Report states, “We were provided with no persuasive evidence that . . . the PA planned the uprising.” George J. Mitchell et al.,
Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee Report, 30 April 2001
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 2001), 2001–2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rpt/3060.htm. The debate on the issue continues.

113
over 65,000 Palestinians:
B’Tselem, “27 Sept. ‘10: 10 Years to the Second Intifada—Summary of Data,” www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20100927.asp, acc. 22 Nov. 2010.

114
“fingers” of Israeli settlement:
See sources at
contiguous Palestinian state
, p. 264 above.