Some time after the implementation of the 'disengagement' plan, during which the Jewish residents of the Gaza Strip were unilaterally evacuated, I met for a conversation on a radio show with a distinctly right-wing journalist. The journalist, talented, it must be said, described the great rift, and the words 'destruction of the home', 'expulsion', 'disaster' were thrown into the air again and again.<\/p>\r\n
I have a hard time remembering where I got the courage, but finally I dared to ask: What in God's name are you talking about, what disaster, what destruction of a house? The residents were forced to move, unwillingly, admittedly, an unpleasant and even difficult step, but from here to 'destruction,' 'expulsion,' 'disaster'?<\/p>\r\n
Do you even know what deportation is? Have you read any history from the 12th century [France], the 13th century [England], the 15th century [Spain], the 20th century [Vichy France]? Reading the texts about these periods sends shivers down your spine. What are the cries of discord about, and here we are, as if we had experienced another Holocaust?<\/p>\r\n
No one suspects Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, perhaps the most cynical man in Israeli politics, of leading the evacuation plan out of purely ideological motives, but the unsympathetic move to another part of the country, fully funded by the Israeli government, seems very far removed from the reactions of right-wing figures, most of whom, by the way, never lived there at all.<\/p>\r\n
I told all this to the journalist sitting across from me, and I tried to suggest to him: "Calm down, I understand that it's not easy to move, but both you and I have changed apartments during our lives, and the fact that here the move was forced does not make it a replication of the expulsion of the Jews of Portugal in 1496.".<\/p>\r\n
In response, I was accused of being "heartbroken" with suppressed anger.<\/p>\r\n
Ten years have passed and it seems that nothing has changed.<\/p>\r\n
On the contrary. An illegal outpost called Amona was built on private Palestinian land, what can be done, and the residents, as in any settlement on someone else's land, were asked to evacuate. The most right-wing government in the history of the country even offered them an alternative place to live just a few dozen meters away, but they flatly refused.<\/p>\r\n
They are gathering hundreds of young people who come to demonstrate and protest, preparing tires and food reserves, and the police and security forces are preparing to evacuate these illegal settlers with large forces, at the expense of millions of shekels, as if they were the ones besieged in Masada, ready to die under the command of Elazar Ben Yair.<\/p>\r\n
Why? Because the land is worth more than anything. Even if it is inhabited by several dozen families who were asked to relocate to the adjacent plot of land, which, by the way, is also the land of the Land of Israel, and is probably worth endless bloodshed.<\/p>\r\n
2.<\/strong> In Haredi society, I learned, there is a right-wing organization of young Haredi people called 'Kedushat Zion', which strongly opposes the evacuation of Amona. The news of this surprised me, and I contacted one of the leaders of the organization to request an interview about this unconventional position.<\/p>\r\n But Hala quickly replied to me firmly: "I thank you for your interest, but in light of your well-known opinions, I believe you will not be able to write objectively about the matter.".<\/p>\r\n The man's unsympathetic response, which taught me that my opinions were considered familiar, delighted me on the one hand, but also gave me an important insight.<\/p>\r\n Besides the fact that the man and his friends apparently understand nothing about the media, they are also of no interest to anyone. At the conference they held this week, a few dozen people came, and no one else was even aware of it.<\/p>\r\n Why? After all, we, the Haredim, as I have mentioned many times, have a right-wing orientation (for some reason), and always prefer right-wing rule? The sad answer is that we don't really care. We have no problem supporting the handsome and charismatic Netanyahu, but we are not prepared to take even one operative step on the matter. The settlements, Gush Katif, and Amona are not at all on our scale of values.<\/p>\r\n For our part, quite a few Haredim will say, let's evacuate everyone, but just leave the Finance Committee to us.<\/p>\r\n Are we 'uncircumcised in heart,' as I was accused by the right-wing journalist wearing the large knitted kippa? It doesn't seem so. Some of us, like me for example, hold left-leaning views, but most of us simply don't care, we don't have relatives and friends in these places, and the debate about it is perceived as being on another planet. Simply put, it's not ours. In other words, the problems of the settlers and their lands interest us in the same way that the problems of Haredi education interest the Minister of Religious Education, Naftali Bennett.<\/p>\r\n In the midst of the disengagement, I asked my fellow kollel: What will you do on the day Modiin Illit is evacuated?<\/p>\r\n The unequivocal answer was along these lines: "With pleasure, yesterday I'm giving up my ugly apartment, as long as I get the four and a half rooms I had in a good area. I have children to marry.".<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The shrieks of discord from Amona residents today, and the disengagement activists at the time, about 'expulsion' and 'destruction of the home' raise serious suspicions that these people really have no idea what expulsion is. \u2022 What did the head of the right-wing ultra-Orthodox movement say to me when I asked to interview him, and how did a member of the kollel respond to the question: What will you do on the day Modi'in Illit is evacuated?","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[138],"tags":[32315,13854],"class_list":["post-332774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-138","tag-32315","tag-13854"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n