The history of rightwing Jewish extremism in Israel is strong. Not 20 years ago a religious extremist murdered Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin because he was considering giving up land to Palestinians under the Oslo accords. Killer Yigal Amir was backed by a conspiracy including rabbis and settlers.
Ten years ago Ariel Sharon was Prime Minister, and Jeffrey Goldberg reported in The New York Times that settlers were urging Sharon’s assassination because he might give up land.
Today Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure to do the same thing, give up land, yet we hear nothing about that history of Jew-on-Jew violence in Israeli society. Why isn’t Yigal Amir’s name a household word in the discourse of Israel/Palestine? Why isn’t the violent religious settler culture that nurtured him in our press? It is surely seething now that the Kerry framework nears completion.
Has that culture gone away? Yossi Gurvitz says it’s alive and well. So does Max Blumenthal’s book Goliath. But the mainstream media are ignoring his account of rightwing elements in Israeli society. (Why can’t they even do a hatchet job on it?) They’re not just hiding the crazy uncle in the attic– they’re hiding a crazed homicidal uncle.
Where is Jeffrey Goldberg when we need him? Here is Goldberg, writing in great detail in The New York Times in August 2004 about rightwing extremists threatening to kill the prime minister:
Ayelet [a settler in Ofra] wore a long skirt, her hair was covered, and she carried an M-16. I asked her if she thought Amalek [biblical enemy of Jews] was alive today. “Of course,” she said…
“Sharon isn’t Amalek,” she said, “but he works for Amalek.”..
“Sharon is forfeiting his right to live,” she said.
I asked her if she would like to kill him.
“It’s not for me to do. If the rabbis say it, then someone will do it. He is working against God.”
Over the past year, I’ve heard at least 14 young Orthodox settlers – in outposts, and in yeshivas in the West Bank and Jerusalem – express with vehemence a desire to murder Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his men, in particular the deputy prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and the defense minister, Shaul Mofaz. I’ve met several more who actively pray – and, I suspect, work – for the destruction of the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim shrine on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. And I have met dozens more who would not sit shiva, certainly not for the Dome, but not for their prime minister, either.
The threat of the radical right has become a matter of terrible urgency in the Israeli government. Avi Dichter, the chief of the Israeli internal security service, … told a Knesset committee last month that his agents believe there are 150 to 200 settlers hoping to kill Mr. Sharon. A member of the committee asked, “If we were talking about Palestinians and not Jews, would you place these people in administrative detention?” Mr. Dichter answered, “Absolutely.”
“Today Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure to do the same thing, give up land, yet we hear nothing about that history of Jew-on-Jew violence in Israeli society. Why isn’t Yigal Amir’s name a household word in the discourse of Israel/Palestine?”
We hear virtually nothing about the history of Palestinian-on-Palestinian and Muslim-on-Muslim violence in Palestinian society. Hamas and Fatah had a civil war a few years ago. There are plenty of Islamic radicals in Palestine and in other terrorist groups who would gladly assassinate Mahmoud Abbas over his willingness to talk to the Israelis.
Yigal Amir is certainly a household name in my community. Everyone knows who he is.
“Why isn’t the violent religious settler culture that nurtured him in our press?”
Because, as usual, your assumptions are 100% wrong. There have been plenty of stories about violent settlers on the right. Here are two recent ones from the NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/world/middleeast/palestinians-corner-jewish-settlers-during-clash-in-west-bank.html?_r=0
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/israels-defense-minister-calls-settlers-attacks-on-palestinians-outright-terror/
But at the end of the day, these guys are a far smaller percentage of Israeli society than Islamic fundamentalists are in Palestinian society. The vast majority of the settlers are not fanatics.
Three leaders to worry about: Benjamin Netanyahu, Barack Obama and John Kerry. Kerry has already been tagged as an “enemy of God” (Amalek) by some pro-Israel religious extremists.
Are these extremist views held by some high-level factions within the Israeli government (including Mossad)?
Was Ariel Sharon’s stroke an “act of God” or something else?
What was the true cause of Yasser Arafat’s death?
Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad insider, in one of his books claimed that a Mossad faction plotted the assassination of George H.W. Bush and intended to blame it on Palestinian terrorists (a typical false flag op).
There are still many open questions about the Yitzhak Rabin assassination (Yigal Amir may have been a low-level pawn) — John F. Kennedy Jr. was investigating these questions (and related matters) for George Magazine when his plane went down off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. If Kennedy hadn’t died, he would would have been a major contender for the presidency. He was also determined to reopen the investigation into the assassination of his father.
One hopes that NSA is operating under the law to protect Kerry and Obama with the utmost vigilance.
1. has the NYT ever published a front page article wherein an Israeli official refers to settlers as ‘terrorists’? (no, not on the ‘front page’ of a NYT blog.)
2. read the last paragraph of your comment again, slowly, and let me know if you spot any rhetorical and/or logical problems with your conclusion. setting aside, of course, your imaginary poll of the number of fanatics amongst the settler population.
The reason why they don’t report these things is that the Times fears it will fuel the left’s ongoing erosion vis-a-vis Israel.
It was safe to do it in the mid-2000s, because the 2SS concensus was still intact.
Of course, then as now, it helped a lot if you were A) Jewish and B) Zionist. In fact, those two attributes were necessities then and are still to a large extent today.
We will never see this kind of coverage in the Times for a very long time again, because it simply confirms the suspicion many have that the 2SS is finished as an architecture for peace(it was never about peace, of course, as people on this website have been informed of).
The next time we will see this kind of coverage, however, it will likely be when the post-Zionist concensus is already in place. So it might take a decade or two, but its coming.
RE: “Ten years ago Ariel Sharon was Prime Minister, and Jeffrey Goldberg reported in The New York Times that settlers were urging Sharon’s assassination because he might give up land… Has that culture gone away? Yossi Gurvitz says it’s alive and well. So does Max Blumenthal’s book Goliath. But the mainstream media are ignoring his account of rightwing elements in Israeli society.” ~ Weiss & North
FOR ONE OF THE REASONS WHY JOURNALISTS IN THE U.S. DARE NOT WRITE ABOUT RIGHT-WING JEWISH EXTREMISM IN ISRAEL, SEE (OR LISTEN TO): “Why the U.S. Media Barely Covered Brutal Right-Wing Race Riots in Tel Aviv”, By Joshua Holland, AlterNet, 6/17/12