The Bathsheba model

Truth is that we've had it. We've had it with the daily threats to turn the country upside down; we've had it with the calls for protest marches into the Gaza strip, in a single column, two or three. Since Mussolini marched into Rome in 1922, there was no such bold, explicit attempt to change a leadership's legal decision.

We've had it with the sieges of entire populations in the southern parts of the country; we've had it with Yesha Council members' arrogance, their disregard to the civil obligation to receive a permit to demonstrate, and the bi-weekly adventures they lead their public into, releasing themselves, in advance, from responsibility for their consequences.

In short: the time come for settler leaders to decide what they are after – thwarting the disengagement or protesting against it. If they seek to protest, so be it, let them voice their disapproval everywhere. That is their right and their duty. But, if they intend to put a halt to the process, if they are trying, by using their public, to overturn the government's decision, then these Mussolinis must be stopped.

The trouble is that they try to have the cake and eat it too: They threaten they'll tear down the fence but complain their buses are stopped en route. Some do it out of habit: they've been having the proverbial cake and keeping it, for many years. Others are confused: they convinced themselves that evacuating Gaza Strip settlements is a disaster, a catastrophe that justifies all follies. 

'Slander is permitted'

One important rabbi from Alon Shvut, named Yisrael Rosen, suggested in a leaflet distributed this past weekend in synagogues, to organize a new mass demonstration: "I (also) call on the settlers to consider surrendering – folding up the orange flag, replacing it with a black one to be flown at half mast, and wave white (not blue-and-white) flags – and then go into exile."

"I do not know how people go to exile," Rosen wrote. "I call on the settler leaders in Gaza to ask that all Israelis gather in Gush Katif, hold a mass mourning ceremony and proceed to march toward exile – turn off the light in Gaza, and turn on the light in our hearts…I call to put an end to the “social discourse” between right- and left-wing activists and between religious and secular Jews."

Seemingly, moderate words; instead of protest marches to nowhere, a ceremony which practically symbolizes the acceptance of a painful reality. But, note the terminology: Eretz Israel starts at Elei Sinai and ends in Rafah. All the rest, Nitznim, Zefad, Tiberias, J-e-r-u-s-a-l-e-m, are exile. It seems that the most extreme leftists do not dare say what this rabbi, knight of (post) religious Zionism, did.

Or another important rabbi, less moderate, Eliezer Melamed, who publishes a column in the Nationalistic ultra-Orthodox newspaper "Besheva" answering readers questions about religious issues. One question referred to negative comments about a government minister and an IDF officer published in the paper. The reader wondered if such words constituted "Leshon Ha'ra" (slander).

The rabbi reassured her: "Slander is permitted when it’s beneficial.”

In the demonstration preceding the last protest march, in Netivot, the organizers asked men and women to gather in separate areas divided by a screen. People ignored the request. The next morning, in Kfar Maimon, the hormone level of the "orange" youths skyrocketed. Those concerned for the National-Zionist maidens' purity, must have shuddered.

Following David’s example?

I only mentioned this heartwarming intimacy because a senior IDF officer told me he has had it. He has had it with the moralistic lectures of the rabbis who harass the IDF because male and female soldiers serve in the same units. "From now on," the officer said, "we will follow their example. We will use our female soldiers like they use their girls in the demonstrations."

Eventually, we will behave like King David, one of the settlers' leaders tried to ease my fears. David fornicated with Bathsheba. Punishment soon followed: their child died. And this is what David did, according to Samuel II 12:

"Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate. His servants asked him, 'Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!'

He replied, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, 'Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.' But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me."

David's next act, according to the bible, was very constructive: "Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The lord loved him."