The Jewish State

You can hear some strange opinions in Israel. Among the stranger that I’ve heard recently is the theory of the mixed multitude, as follows: When the Israelites fled Egypt, it is believed that certain Egyptians and others were amongst them. This “mixed multitude” thus contained non-Jews, and it is held by some that the descendents of these non-Jews are still living amongst the Jewish people – an infiltration of Goyim has polluted the purity of the Jewish nation. Which means that some of the world’s Jews are – God forbid! – not Jewish. Oi vay! Shame, shame, shame upon them.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, there are certain right wing religious groups who suggest that any of the secular and left wing Jews in Israel are part of this mixed multitude and so are, in fact, not Jewish at all. This, of course, is to discredit their views on Judaism, Israel, and anything that relates to them. As leftish seculish Jews, Seth and I were warned to keep our heads down at the next settlement we were visiting, as the theory of the “mixed multitude” was one advocated amongst some of the yishuv’s more extreme members.

To be honest, we found the theory quite funny. On a rare night off from the quiet West Bank settlements, in the bustling bars of Jerusalem’s winding side streets, I shared this joke with a woman I’d just met – an Israeli human rights worker with the UN. To my surprise, she agreed with this fanatical religious view. “At last – a group that’s prepared to acknowledge that I am not Jewish – I’m Israeli!” She exclaimed. Of course she was joking, inasmuch as there is surely little ground that this secular Israeli UN Palestinian rights worker shares with right wing Jewish fundamentalists settling in Occupied Palestine. Nevertheless, her point was significant: some Israeli Jews see themselves as Israeli only, and Judaism – religiously, culturally, ethnically or otherwise - is not of interest to them.

Once on the settlement, we started to see the flip side of this view. There we encountered religious American Jews who feel detached from and uninterested in the political state of Israel. They talk about the Jewish state and speak of their love of the land of Israel, but not for the state or the government. Our hosts’ Hebrew was poor, their knowledge of politics limited and their physical location was remote, detached from the bulk of Israeli society. Most of their friends were American. But they were religious people – strictly observant of Jewish halacha – and were well versed in their Biblical narrative, paying particular attention to why the land on which they settled belonged to the Jewish people. Here then, were Jews: not Israelis.

Since the disengagement from Gaza, settlers such as these have distanced themselves from the government. Instead, they place faith in their Rabbis, their leaders and their own solidarity, to ensure that they remain on “Jewish land” and that the Jewish state includes the West Bank.

But the more that settler groups such as these define themselves as Jews in a Jewish state, the more they distance themselves from the Israeli mainstream. The secularists in Tel Aviv and Haifa see them as an obstruction to peace and react to their perceived monopoly of Israel’s political fate. In turn, these settlers become more isolated. This split is significant, because the more vocal the settlers are in distancing themselves from the government, that state and the army, the more they distance the concept of a Jewish state from that of an Israeli state.

On the other hand, we have met many settlers who claim to act purely in the interest of the state of Israel, though they believe that the state should include the West Bank. Such settlers object to those more extreme settlers who resist the state and the government.

So far the settlers that have seemed more loyal to the state have been Israeli, while those who talk about loyalty to Jewish land have been foreign – mostly American. It would seem that the latter seek a Jewish state and have less deep rooted attachment to Israel as a political entity than their Israeli counterparts, who believe that the state of Israel is the most important thing.

The irony is that in advocating a Jewish state on the West Bank, while failing to adopt an Israeli-nationalist set of values, the more extreme proponents of a Jewish rather an Israeli state in fact undermine their cause. They push themselves away from the state of Israel. Their nationalism becomes Jewish and not Israeli, and the majority of Israelis begin to see the concept of a Jewish nation as different to that of an Israeli nation. The more this happens, the more likely we are to see people like the UN worker define Israel as Israeli and not Jewish.

In this way, the extreme settlers risk driving the state of Israel away from their cause – to the point that they no longer have a monopoly over the country’s fate, but are increasingly viewed as an idiosyncratic pariah – an entity to be ignored and overcome.

The Israeli settlers who advocate a strong state of Israel that includes the West Bank appear to be aware of this. They continue to espouse their settlement project in the name of the state of Israel, rather than solely in the name of religion. It would seem they know where the real power lies – and know how to use it to their own ends.

Kind of Like a Shield

As Sarel drove swiftly down the motorway in his mother’s car, the villages on the nearby hills raced past our windows – the fluorescent green lights of the minarets the only way to distinguish at night between Jewish and Arab towns. Sarel spoke freely and easily to us during the journey, beginning with his take on the value of settlements to Am Yisroel (the people of Israel).

“Some people see settlers as just there [in the Shtachim] to annoy the Arabs”, he said, “but I see them as the true patriots. They keep the war away from the centre of Israel, from Tel Aviv, Netanya and the other cities – kind of like a shield”. He told us that the passion and dedication of settler youth can be seen by the disproportionately high number of settler soldiers in special forces units of the army. “It’s because they know to do their duty for their country from the minute they are born, just by living in the Shtachim, so they want to do the same when they get to the army”, said Sarel.

He spoke sadly about the back problems that forced him to become a jobnik, as opposed to a combat soldier, and the regret is apparent in his eyes as he talked about his childhood friends’ heroics in their various fighter units. He talked about the army with the same ardency that Arik always displayed whenever we talked with him during family gatherings, and with the same seriousness that Sarel himself used to chastise me whenever I’d come and stay at his house sporting an (illegal) earring with my army fatigues.

Sarel told us that the security wall is little more than “an arse covering exercise”, and that it is of no real value other than a way for politicians to placate the Israeli electorate. “It’s not effective, nor useful in the long term”, he said. “The Arabs will outgrow the land we give them, and then there will be anarchy. Plus they should be able to meet up with the Israeli Arabs on the other side of the wall, in my opnion”.

He told us that, “even though settlements help stretch out the borders of Israel”, he despises the illegal hilltop outposts. “There are just three caravans on a hill, and it takes four soldiers to guard them”, he said angrily. “These three fucking families cause the deaths of our soldiers”, he spat, momentarily forgetting his mild-mannered speech and cursing the extremist settlers who endanger military lives. “I wish the army would just forget their principles, their code of conduct, and just let the hilltop crew fend for themselves”, he sighed, turning off the main road and scanning the empty streets for parking spaces.

Once we’d parked up in a side street opposite the bar – “I have to park facing forwards, since all soldiers are taught to park that way on base in case of emergency” – we went inside and ordered a beer each. Sitting at a table in the small but crowded Irish themed bar, Sarel told us about life for the youth of Elkana. “Growing up in Elkana is amazing, but gets very boring by the age of fourteen or fifteen”, he said.

“Even though I love settlements and the ideology behind them, I doubt I will live on one when I’m older – I need to be by the beach”, he said. Sarel is a hiloni/dati mix, or – as he calls it – Datlash [acronym for dati sheleavar, religious who’s gone secular]. “I am a Zionist, and I am a supporter of the settlements, but not because of the Biblical connection – more because it’s our land and we need to keep it”, he told us. “I don’t believe in land-for-peace”, he declared. “I believe in land-for-land, or peace-for-peace”.

“My dream is to live in peace with the Arabs”, he went on. “In the pre-intifada days, I remember I used to fill up the water bottles of the Arabs who harvested their olive groves by the edge of the yeshuv, but all that [interaction] has gone now”. He told us that his politics haven’t changed since joining the army, but that most of the soldiers in his unit are from Tel Aviv and don’t believe in the settlement enterprise. He said that his main political influences have been his father and his friends from Elkana. He doesn’t talk about politics with his girlfriend – “but I know that she hates her friends from Herzliya Pituach having to guard settlers”. He said that “I don’t think I could date a leftwing girl”.

As we made steady progress with our pints, Sarel told us “Gaza was such a big mistake”, and that he doesn’t think that there can ever be peace between Israel and her neighbours. I asked him if it made him depressed to think that there will be a perpetual state of war, but he told me “no, it doesn’t upset me, since I’m used to it by now. I was born into war. Since I was one year old, I’ve been going to Yom Hazikaron ceremonies, I’ve learnt Zionist history at school about the wars we fought, and I’ve lost family and friends in battle. You, coming from England, can’t imagine having your best friend killed, our a mate from school losing an eye on a mission”.

He told us about his experiences of Diaspora youth, such as the five days he spent with a Birthright tour group from Montreal. “They were the same age as me, but they were like little children – all the cared about was booze, girls and clothes… I felt this very strongly when I was with them”, he said. I asked him if he didn’t lament the loss of innocence that Israeli youth suffer when growing up in the midst of a conflict, but he said that if anything, he felt the opposite. “I want my kids to know and care about more than just their immediate surroundings”, he replied. “I want my kids to go to the army and be fighters. I know that there’s a chance that they might die in battle, but that’s the way it is. I don’t know why I feel this way, but I do”. His words, to all intents and purposes, were as harrowing as those of the residents of refugee camps who resign themselves to their own children needing to give their lives to fight the Israelis.

Sarel went to Bnei Akiva [the orthodox youth movement with a strong presence on both sides of the Green Line, and round the world], although only until sixth grade. “They told me that I would make a great madrich [leader], but that I was not religious enough”. Repeating his self-styled Datlash status, he said that he and his friends call themselves “upgraded version of hiloni youth, since we grew up with principles and morals”.

Josh then asked Sarel why both Kedumim and Elkana have so few restaurants and cafes. Sarel replied that people won’t got to eat or drink in a place where they know everyone and see the same faces, but that they prefer to go out to the nearby cities – which might be difficult for Kedumim residents to do, but is far easier for those who live in Elkana. “Everyone who has a car goes into Petach Tikva or Kfar Sava. People have tried to open more cafes in Elkana, but they always fail”.

He told us that “yerida [reverse of aliya] is out of the question. Never”, and that he wants to work for Shabak [internal security/intelligence] some day. He said that the military is so close to his heart because “the better the army looks, the better the country looks. The conflict is a symbol of our image. Of course we do have the Americans giving outside help, but we look after ourselves as well”. He told us that “the way that the Jews have bounced back since the Shoah is amazing. My generation has the honour to be the last one that can meet Holocaust survivors, so me must learn what we can from them and continue the fight for survival”. Repeating the adage he heard in school and at home in his childhood, he told us “the country that does not learn from its past has no future”.

As we drank up and headed for the door, Sarel looked at the pictures of footballers on the wall of the bar and declared “the Israeli national team is wonderful – you can see Arabs, leftwingers and rightwingers all hugging one another after a goal”. He told us that the only reason that the bar is Irish themed is because the Irish colours matched the green and white kit of the local team, Hapoel Kfar Sava.

On the way back, he said that “settler girls are beautiful, but they’re too religious. We joke that the streets are kept clean by our girls’ skirts trailing along the floor”. He put on a CD of “settler music – like klesmer, but with a trance beat”. We listened to the popular tune “Aba, hayiti dos” [Dad, I became a black-hat], as we sped up the motorway back towards the yeshuv.

Sarel then told us about the different types of hitchhiking that settler youth have to do to get around. “When you’re thirteen or fourteen, you only hitch from bus stops, but when you are a couple of years older, you start walking out at junctions between the cars, knocking on doors and asking for a lift. Of course the parents worry, but they know that there’s no other way to get around when they live so far out in the country”. He said that even though the parents all give their kids money to take the bus, “no one listens to them – hitchhiking is the trend. And anyway, there’s more chance of being blown up on a bus than being kidnapped in a car”.

Finally, he drove us round the settlement of Magen Dan, a relatively recent yeshuv which adjoins Elkana via a twisting country lane. All of the families live in trailers and caravans, yet the shul is made of bricks and mortar. “The first thing that any settlers build on their yeshuv is the shul”, said Sarel. “It’s their way of saying ‘we’ve arrived, we’re here to stay’”.

Pizza Now

We were looking forward to taking it easy and putting our pens back in their scabbards for a couple of hours, but the previously monosyllabic man behind the counter had other ideas. Finally clocking that we were visitors to the yeshuv, he decided to grill us on the purpose of our stay. “Are you Jews?”, was his opening gambit, to which I offered to show him the physical proof, but he opted to take my word for it instead – which spared the blushes of the settler girls crowded into the shop as well.

Upon hearing our plans for the book, he told us that he’d be shutting up shop shortly, and that he’d come outside and chat to us if we wanted as soon as he’d cleaned the place up. We retired outside to eat, then Yehiel – a stocky man with closely cropped hair in his mid thirties – came to sit with us and give us his views on settlements and Israeli politics. Wiping his oil-stained hands on his t-shirt, he launched straight into a vehement tirade against the Israeli public and the government who lead them.

“Firstly, this country is totally apathetic, and the cabinet only care about one thing – money. Olmert’s got too much to lose if he goes to war” - at which point he pulled his trouser pockets inside out to demonstrate Olmert’s primary concern – “so instead he spends his time talking to the Syrian president. Why? Are they talking about the price of beer? No – he’s going to give him the Golan, then keep handing over land all the way down the Jordan river to Jericho”.

Handing me paprika and other spices to sprinkle on the pizza, promising me “you’ll thank me for it”, he went on to declare that there are no true Zionists in the political system anymore. Surely the government are Zionists, I said, to which he replied “Maybe, but they only care about money first and foremost. There’s no one like Menachem Begin, or even Benny Begin [his son] – who was as straight as a spirit level. Where are the Ben Gurions today? Ben Gurion loved this country so much that he went to live in the desert in Sde Boker, yet today’s leaders are more interested in who has the nicest car, the biggest house”.

He then swivelled his guns on the Israeli electorate, “who have lost their ideology and drive. So long as they’re ok in their cities, they don’t care about the rest of the country. What about Sderot?”, he cried. “Why is Sderot not being looked after? I’ll tell you – because the residents are poor. They wouldn’t let Ramat Gan get treated like this”, he assured us. “The world wouldn’t mind us standing up for ourselves – in fact, the only time they admire Israel is when we are strong and stand up for ourselves, like in ‘67”.

“Our people run around like ants in Sderot, terrified that a Kassam will fall on them. There was a bag next to my shop today – why should I have to be scared that it could be a bomb?”, he asked, looking pained as he considered the fate of the Israeli man on the street. We asked him what he’d do if he were in power, and his eyes lit up.

“Now is the time to clear out the Arabs”, he said, “that’s what I’d do if I was the prime minister… but we’re not here to talk about dreams. The people won’t march for ideals, but if you offer them free meat or free fireworks, they’d be out on the street in a flash”, he remarked. I asked him if, in that case, he’d be joining his fellow settlers at next week’s protest at Homesh, but he shook his head and said “I doubt it – what’s the point?” – displaying the same kind of apathy that he had just been criticising in his fellow Israeli.

“Look”, Yehiel went on, “I read politics, and I follow world news. In Ukraine, they mobilised on the street to bring down the government, but here? Only Gaydamak does anything. He builds a tent city, and then the government are forced to follow suit – but they’d rather have kept the cash for lining their own pockets”.

Getting worked up again, he declared that “only the religious mobilise here. Look how they fought the government over the Gay Pride march in Jerusalem”. I replied that the reason the religious are so powerful is that they have totalitarian rabbis at the helm who call the shots for their communities to follow, and Yehiel agreed. “That’s right – though that system has it’s ups and downs, since the followers never have any freedom. The religious are small in number, but strong in spirit”.

He then moved on to a subject evidently very close to his heart. Of Yemeni descent – “I was born here, but my mother and father came over from Yemen in 1949” – he told us that “Israelis have a huge hole in their knowledge when it comes to understanding the Arabs”. “I feel safe here generally”, he said, gesturing expansively to the surrounding streets of Kedumim, “but at the same time I know what Arabs are really about”.

“Because my parents are Yemeni, I know the Arab mentality much better than you do, just as you know the English mentality better than I ever could, and just like a Polish Jew understands Poles the best. In the Arab world, there is no such word as compromise. If they are forced to compromise, they feel as though they’ve lost. If you found a stack of a hundred one dollar bills, the Arab won’t split it fifty-fifty with you. It’s the law of the jungle to him – he’ll fight you to the death for it. We have to act like them, and read their minds, and the only way is to be stronger than them”.

What about the peace deal with Egypt, asked Josh – wasn’t that an example of Arabs compromising. “It’s no peace”, maintained Yehiel. “It’s a cold war. And that’s no better than a hot war – worse, in fact, since we can’t go in and prevent them funding and aiding terrorists, because we have to act as though we’re ‘at peace’”.

Well into his stride now, Yehiel went on with his diatribe. “The religious know this, since they know that all through history we’ve had the same enemy – Pharoah, Moab, Amalek, Arafat, Hezbollah, and now Ahmedinijad. There were religious Jews who said ‘I’ve had enough of all this’, and took off their kipa and tried to forget they were Jewish, but then Hitler came along and said ‘no – your grandfather’s grandfather was Jewish, so now you’re going to die’”.

“Tell me why there is not a single Peace Now or Gush Shalom in the entire set of twenty two Arab nations?”, he asked us, “not even as far away as in Pakistan or Indonesia. I’ll tell you why – it’s because they haven’t made the mental switch to believe that compromise is possible. They know no better. Look at North Korea too. They dress exactly the same as one another, all in grey, just like the Russians did under communism. All they know is rice, day and night, night and day, so they don’t know that cornflakes and milk exists, let alone tastes better. The only way to change them is through the internet and open forums”.

I asked if Israelis couldn’t help with this task, for example joint schooling of Israeli and Arab children, in order to open them up to other opinion than just their own. “No way”, replied Yehiel adamantly. “Tell me, why don’t you go to their villages to interview them? Because you’re scared – you know they’ll kidnap you, and not even because you’re Jewish. Look at the BBC man [Alan Johnston] – they took him just because he’s foreign and they thought they could exploit the opportunity”.

I told him that some schools do have joint projects between Arabs and Israelis, for example going on trips together, but Yehiel scoffed at their effectiveness. “What, so they climb Everest together, take a picture, and go home? Meaningless – they will never, ever give up their quest to have Israel, and until they make the mental switch to compromise, it’s pointless shaking hands with them like Yossi Beilin does. Look, they kill their own people if they sell land to Jews – if a Kedumim resident sold land to Arabs, would he be killed? Of course not. Shunned, maybe, taken to court, perhaps – but not killed. And they’d kill the man’s sister too – even the Israeli Arabs inside Israel do it. If a mishi goes round with a boy they don’t approve of, she’ll be murdered”.

Showing no sign of slowing, Yehiel continued to drum home his lesson, ignoring the silent pleading in our eyes for him to let us go home to sleep. “In Abu Dhabi, they still walk around with sabres tucked into their belts. Mothers are happy when their kids kill themselves. Religious Jews don’t have this mentality – ok, Baruch Goldstein did, but he was only one man amongst thousands. If you want balance for your book, go and interview the Arabs in their villages – and if you’re too scared to, they you’ve answered your own question about how to bring peace. You can’t – we’ll live like this forever. It’s sixty years since the Shoah, and still there’s anti-Semitism in Europe – why? In Yemen, there was no Hitler, but Jews were attacked, their women snatched, they were not allowed to own land, and could only have donkeys, not horses. My parents came here to escape that in 1949, and I won’t let it repeat itself here in my land”.

I asked him if he hoped that life for Israelis would soon improve. “This is the improved life”, replied Yehiel. “I’d rather live in a bomb shelter here than be slaughtered by Nazis in Europe”. I told him that his outlook was depressing, and he said “that’s why we have Prozac – three a day, and you’ll be ok”. That wrapped up our chat, and Josh and I hauled ourselves back up the hill and straight into our beds.

Settling off

Boarding the bus at Jerusalem’s tahanat merkazit felt much like the start of any journey through Israel. A typical mix of childlike soldiers, scholarly datim and swaggering hilonim jostled for space as they approached the steps to the coach that was to take us to the Israeli settlement of Ariel - deep inside the West Bank. The first thing that struck me as we took our seats towards the front of the bus was that the windows were reinforced with bullet proof glass, a pertinent reminder that the number 480 bus might be a standard route, but this was to be far from a routine journey.

Warnings from secular Israelis inside the Green Line had been forthcoming and frequent, upon hearing of the purpose of our trip – to travel extensively throughout Israeli settlements on lands captured during the Six Day War, to discover what life is really like behind the headlines. “Are you crazy?!” They exclaim, “You don’t understand how dangerous it is to go to these places. They are not safe. People are killed there all the time.” One of Israeli society’s many stark divides also tends to surface at this point, when our hiloni (secular) advisors rail against the datim (religious people) that are famous for living beyond the Green Line. “They are crazy too. They are all religious there. Extremely. They believe they are fighting God’s battles.”

In fact, according to the anti-settlement movement Peace Now, just over half of all West Bank settlers identify themselves to be religious, a statistic born out by the variety of people seated with us en route to the predominantly secular West Bank city of Ariel.

Nevertheless, the point still stood: the Israeli hiloni majority feel that the West Bank settlers are a different people from themselves - a zealous, isolated minority, holding the country to ransom over ancient landscapes and archaic battles. This journey was mired in politics and vitriol before it had begun. Ours, then, was an attempt to demystify the rumours; to debunk the myths and uncover a sense of day-to-day life in these most contentious of lands. Our aim was to add colour to the black and white dichotomy that sits at the epicentre of Israel’s political quagmire. Because no problem can be solved, before it is truly understood.

The battle scars of the hiloni/ dati divide were immediately apparent as the bus drew away from the dark shelter at the rear of the station and into the dazzling Jerusalem sunshine. To our left sat a young religious man, dressed in the standard garb – not the black hats and coats of the Haredi Jews, but a subtly different uniform – that of the National Religious movement, the body at the heart of Israel’s West Bank settlement programme. Like his haredi counterparts, he sported a long beard, but his clothing was rather more relaxed. Loose-fitting navy trousers unsuited to the grubby pale blue shirt above them were set off by a notably unfashionable combination of socks and sandals covering his feet. Where his shirt spilled out over his waist, long, knotted tzitzit streamed out over the seat and became entangled in anything they touched. Atop his head sat the familiar large, knitted kippah as worn by all those of his tribe, and in his hands he held the siddur from which he prayed intently, silently poring over every word, his thoughts a world away from the two hilonim English cousins that sat to his right, examining him so attentively.

And there on his bag were the marks of the battle that had scarred the country almost two years previously. Colour meant everything in the summer of 2005 when Sharon ploughed on with his proposed evacuation of Gaza and parts of the West Bank. Those in support of the evacuation of Israel’s settlers tied blue ribbons to everything, whilst those who opposed the move with all their pious might wore orange – and flocks of orange clad demonstrators streamed through the streets of the Holy Land. Sharon won that battle but then lost the fight, leaving the country in a confused limbo. As a result, the issue is far from concluded and protestors regularly march to Homesh – one of the West Bank settlements dismantled two years ago – to demand its reconstruction.

The blue brigade might feel they have won the battle of ’05 (though many confess to feeling uncertain as to whether it was the right thing, given Gaza’s ceaseless barrage of qassam rockets into Israel) but the orange fire still burns fiercely in the hearts of the settlers. There, knotted tightly to the man’s bag, was an orange ribbon, grubby with age and somewhat lacklustre – though its very presence confirmed the divide that has only become further entrenched in the period following the hitnatkut (withdrawal). This orange ribbon was the most familiar and potent symbol of the place we were now preparing to enter. It was also one we wanted to move beyond, in order to transcend the division of blue and orange, black and white, and discover just who these notorious settlers are.