Tired of defending Weiss
Silent religious majority advocates continuation of settlement enterprise via lobbying, education and politics not via curses of Hillel Weiss and his ilk
It's a problem. On the one hand, you oppose the evacuation of the two families in Hebron; you advocate making even minor evacuations from roads or settlements difficult for the government.
On the one hand you want the army to tire from the rotten task of pulling Jews out of their homes and outposts. You are still mad at the "state" and the government for secretly and overtly making plans for another disengagement while the evacuees of Gush Katif are still stuck in caravans. On the one hand you feel that you should automatically and out of solidarity stand by the pioneer settlers who risk their lives while you're sitting safely at home; on the one hand you see all those leftists preaching against soldiers who refuse to evacuate settlers, and their rabbis, and you know that if they all come out against the settlers, you will have to support them.
On the other hand, you're a bit tired. You're tired of defending people like Professor Hillel Weiss, who decided to go on a rampage with his latest series of slurs. You ask yourself (and reply), do I really need such people on my side? Does he really represent, in his actions and words, the relentless settlement enterprise and dedication, or is he just another nutcase who is being forced upon us.
Rightists protest Hebron evacuation (Photo: Gil Yohanan)
On the other hand you don't understand how people similar to you, members of religious Zionism and graduates of its institutions, curse and swear in such a manner. How religious boys, and particularly girls, throw themselves on the ground knowing full-well that sweaty soldiers will soon be forced to drag them away. You are tired of the comparisons to the Holocaust and the Nazis and the yellow stars of David, and the biting and swearing and wild and hysterical rhetoric.
You don't understand why for the sake of two houses in Hebron they enlisted the entire religious Zionist camp and your goodwill, so that you could announce that if they evacuate (that is, uproot, evict and ethnically cleanse), you would burn the house down and your kids would also refuse to serve in the army, go to prison and get citations from dubious characters the likes of Itamar Ben Gvir.
It's complicated. How do you denounce this ferociousness without being labeled a bleeding-heart leftist? How do you prevent evacuations without resorting to rioting and cursing?
This is the greatest dilemma faced by the vast, quiet majority of the religious Zionist camp. The majority that wants a Greater Israel, while remaining politically correct. These are people whose life in the country is characterized by a desire to integrate, not to take over. They are people who try to add their colors to the civilian agenda, rather than seeing just black and white.
Annoying, but still family
The state has disappointed us again and again, while the settlers in Hebron or Yitzhar annoy us at times, but are a part of us, our family. This is a clash between the family and the state. The state is a powerful, somewhat blind, entity, while the family has children, faces and names. What do you do when your relatives are frothing at the mouth in their struggle against the state's plans? Do hooliganism and terribly bad taste serve our beliefs, or do the crazies make all of us seem insane?
The "dark-orange" activists and some of the national haredim and Feiglin-supporters tell us that in order to win we must be a lot stronger; that if we are soft and weak, nothing will remain here, certainly not the settlements.
Opposite these people, who want to win at all cost, stand the silent rightist-religious majority. This is a majority that refuses to get into a fight, because that's not their taste in political protests. When a female settler is being dragged across the road in Hebron, he refuses to be dragged away with her. This is the majority that thinks that if Amona redeemed our honor after the quiet evacuation of Atzmona, he is willing to relinquish this honor.
This is a majority that is not willing to win at any cost, because those who are willing to win at any cost pay the price and then lose. This is a majority that sympathetically accepts the fact that there are marginal groups slightly more militant and determined, but its heart aches when these people create the impression that they are the leaders.
It is a majority that wants to be ashamed of its extremists without being ashamed of doing so; it is a majority that thinks that you can win (or not) through lobbying, education and politics, and by continuing the settlement enterprise. Not with the curses of Hillel Weiss and his ilk. This is the silent majority. Way too silent.
