Police, settlers clash in Amona
Photo: Reuters
Us and them
Gap between Green Line Israel and settlers may be unbridgeable
The country is splitting in two: "Us" and "them."
It is a valley that calls into question our ability to continue to live together, to build a joint venture.
The cracks between extremist elements amongst the settlers and their supporters and the overall Jewish public inside the Green Line appeared long ago. After disengagement the cracks became gaps and swept away more moderate elements.
Yesterday that gap became a yawning valley. It is unclear if that valley can be bridged.
Amona Clashes
Andrew Friedman
Amona riot was a long time in the making – on both sides, Andrew Friedman writes
Some of the folks over there, behind the wall, are already gone. This country – its laws, symbols and officers – are foreign to them. Mentally, they have already established their "State of Judea."
It might be possible to repair the wound a young soldier sustained on her face after being scratched with a broken piece of glass.
But the ugly scars we suffered as a country will be impossible to sweep under the proverbial carpet.
And this time, there is no way to blame the intelligence community. This time the country willingly closed its eyes.
After the Gush Katif operation, we played "ostrich" and buried our heads in the sand. We convinced ourselves that there was no real trauma, laughed in the press that they'd "overblown" warnings about bloodshed and civil war.
We were thrilled it ended the way it did; we patted ourselves on the back in self-congratulations, as fitting for the princes of superficiality and stupidity (that, by the way, is also how we nurtured Hamas.)
But while we slept, a wide swath of teenagers, very generally called Zionist-religious-nationalist, became infused with bitter feelings of frustration that turned into loathing and hatred. These are the feelings we saw all-too-well yesterday.
They feel we trampled their faith, that we dismiss even their dreams, the vision of greater, promised Israel they were educated to dream of.
This tear is not only from us, but also from their parents. Some parents surely send a message to their children that they, too, are frustrated and hurting, but responsibility requires them to move within the consensus of overall Israeli opinion.
The kids are also kicking at them. In the view of those kids, their parents – as well as the traditional settlement leadership – went like sheep to the slaughter in Gush Katif.
Kids running the show
The politicians that showed up yesterday at Amona to score a few political points played no role. The camereas followed them out of habit, but they had no influence on the goings-on. Neither did the Yesha Council. The kids have no regard for them at all.
Even the rabbis who negotiated the evacuation of Gush Katif settlements are ignored, leaving them only with extremist rabbis.
Therefore, the Israeli establishment has no one to talk to anymore. And therefore, the next evacuation will be even more violent. Every meeting between these extremist groups and security forces will grow more violent still.
IDF officials expected violence. But everybody was shocked at the strength of the hatred and anger. The result: More than 200 people wounded, including 171 civilians and 45 cops.
One 16-year-old boy was hospitalized in serious condition with head wounds, a border policeman who suffered several broken facial bones and policeman who suffered a shattered kneecap.
This was no protest demonstration. This was a cruel event, loaded with hatred.
In recent months the legal establishment has conveyed a message of mercy with regard to "ideological" lawbreakers.
Of course, they are not all made of the same material. So the State Prosecutor rescinded indictments against disengagement rioters and the IDF allowed them to join its ranks.
This was a mistake. To prevent the Amona riots we would have had to sharpen the issue of respect for the law. No mercy.
We should have isolated the inciters and extremists amongst them, to arrest and detain them whole year around, not just for a few days ahead of some pullout operation at an illegal outpost.
When you don't show resolve in enforcing the law on a daily basis, you are pushed in a corner of broken heads.
Perhaps it is not too late to begin enforcing the law. It might be even harder – but the alternative is much worse.
