BIN NUN
HAARETZ JANUARY 28, 2005
Apocalypse now Interview with Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun
Response to Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun
Dear Editor:
The headline on the interview with Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun is correct
'Apocalypse Now".
I who wear a knitted kippa, never voted for Likud or Sharon and have
always respected the Rabbi's moderate views and am distraught about the
thoughts he expressed in your interview.
The Rabbi writes with an extreme 'messianic' mind set of cosmic
struggles and uses apocalyptic thinking. In his view the only solution
is we the Israelis win and the Palestinians lose or vice
versa. It is in fact the same thinking the resulted in the
destruction of the both Temples. Jeremiah understood that we could not
defeat the Babylonians. So it must have been foreordained and
consequently Jeremiah called Nebuchadnezzer G-d's servant (Jer. 27:6).
During the second Temple Yohanan ben Zakai, a disciple of Hillel (What
is hateful to you do not do to others, that is the whole law (BT Shab.
31a)) understood that fighting Rome was fighting G-d. By escaping from
Jerusalem he saved Judaism.
Rabbi Bin Nun's suggestion (perviously noted by Hillel Halkin) that the
Israeli armed forces simply withdraw and allow the settlers to remain
is either deceitful (which I prefer not to believe) or from a mind set
that is totally unrealistic. We all know what Hamas and the al Aqsa
Brigade would do to unprotected Israelis separated in the Gaza strip.
Rabbi Bin Nun's winner take all politics will result in death and war.
Since American views are so important to Israeli's we should remember
what Abraham Lincoln said about America's worst war - its civil war. In
his second inaugural address Abraham Lincoln declared that the
competing American armies and peoples both pray to the same God, and
each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any
men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread
from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be
not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither
has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. Lincoln
quoted Hillel and did not use terms like mutual 'hatred' and state that
his enemies were 'striving to generate a violent collision' and leading
'us into a civil war'.
Is not managing the conflict through negotiation a better solution? We
do have a democratically elected parliament with opposing
parties; let opposing input come from there. There is nothing wrong
with a referendum, except Israel has never held one. We are and have
always been a representative democracy from the Bible (Ex. 18:25-26)
read the same week as the interview, from before the State of Israel in
the first Zionist convention in Basle in 1897 until today.
Rabbi Bin Nun view is simply the softer side of rejectionists who
proclaim my way or war.
Rabbi Moshe Reiss
Bet Shemesh
By Ari Shavit Photos by Eyal Toueg
Veteran settler leader Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun, who heads the religious kibbutz movement yeshiva near Alon Shvut, warns that the disengagement in Gush Katif could turn into another Masada. And he implores the left to be wary of Ariel Sharon. The Prime Minister, he says, is leading the nation into another `wild gamble,' like the calamity of Lebanon
Yoel Bin Nin is distraught. On a stormy night, with the rain falling in sheets, he sits in a Jerusalem cafe and wonders what he should do. Maybe a petition to the High Court of Justice. Maybe a hunger strike. Because what has to be done now is to shake the foundations, to rip apart the fabric of the world to wake the people from their apathy, to show the people what is happening and make them open their eyes.
In a heavy parka, wearing a knitted skullcap, with a biblical
beard, Rabbi Bin Nun is agitated. He is beside himself. He turns this
way and that. He arrogates to himself the right of speech and the right
of outcry. Don't the readers of Haaretz understand what is about to
happen? Don't they see what is already happening? After all, the first
shot was already fired, at the settlement of Yitzhar. And in the
synagogues of Judea and Samaria Ariel Sharon is spoken of as a
dictator. In backrooms he is also called "the converted one." He is
likened to a Jew who, in the process of forsaking his religion, tears
up sacred books in public. People are up in arms, seething. Zealots are
already moving to Gush Katif, the Gaza Strip settlement bloc. All the
seismographs are going wild, indicating that the coming earthquake will
be far more dangerous than the one of the Jewish underground or the one
that preceded the Rabin assassination. Don't the left-wingers
understand this? Can't they read the map? Are there no people of
conscience left among them?
The next conversation is held in Bin Nun's home in Alon Shvut, in the
Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem. He built this home four
years ago, after being compelled to leave the settlement of Ofra, in
Samaria. After his spiritual stocktaking in the wake of the Rabin
assassination created a gulf between him and his former colleagues in
Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful). They should go to Yitzhak's grave
and ask for forgiveness, Bin Nun said. They have to undergo a great
tikkun - a purification of the soul - and seek atonement. After all,
today it is clear that compared to Sharon, Rabin was a tzaddik, a
righteous man. Today it is clear that in contrast to Sharon, Rabin
never raised his hand against the settlement enterprise. Under no
circumstances would he have uprooted Gush Katif. He always spoke with
high regard for Gush Katif. He cultivated Gush Katif. He viewed it as
vital buffer zone, which is a paragon of Zionist settlement.
Bin Nun, who heads the yeshiva of the religious kibbutz movement in the
settlement of Ein Tzurim, near Alon Shvut, was born in Haifa in 1946.
He attended Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem and in the Six-Day War
was part of the Paratroop Brigade that liberated the Old City of
Jerusalem. Not long after that, Bin Nun was one of the first to cross
the Green Line and resettle Gush Etzion, which was an area of Jewish
settlement until the War of Independence.
In 1974 he was one of the founders of Gush Emunim, the settlement
movement. Two years later he was part of the group that entered Samaria
and established Ofra. Did he make a mistake? Was he part of a terrible
historic mistake? Bin Nun cannot conceive of that possibility. But he
notes that already after the affair of the Jewish underground, in the
first half of the 1980s, he understood that fanaticism was endangering
the settlement project. And after Oslo, he understood that the
settlement project would not be able to carry the dream of Greater
Israel on its shoulders. That is why he created the close relationship
with Yitzhak Rabin. And why he believed that the allies of the
religious Zionist movement had to come from the left, not the right.
At the critical juncture, Bin Nun was supposed to be the bridge between
the left and the settlers. But now, with the critical juncture of the
evacuation having arrived, there is no bridge. Yoel Bin Nun feels that
he is standing alone in the face of great tidal waves of zealotry from
the right and from the left. From the rocky hills of Alon Shvut he
watches as the turbulence descends on the land, asking himself whether
it is still possible to avert the calamity.
You are considered the most moderate of the settlers - are you against
the disengagement plan, too?
"The disengagement plan is a scandal. It is insane. The absolutely
certain result will be the burial of the prospect for peace. From the
point of view of anyone who wants peace and believes in peace, this
plan is suicide."
Explain, please.
"Since the Six-Day War, the correct policy of every Israeli government
was that there will be no withdrawal without recognition, without
negotiations and without a peace agreement. That was the Israeli
response to the Arab summit meeting in Khartoum [in the summer of
1967], which rejected recognition, negotiations and peace with Israel.
That response worked. It obliged the neighboring Arab states and the
Palestinians gradually to compromise with Israel; to reach agreements
with us in order to get territories from us.
"The disengagement plan breaks that long-term strategy. As a result, it
will build up Hamas and place Abu Mazen [as Palestinian Authority
Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is known] in a trap. It will persuade the
Palestinian street that every concession to Israel is stupidity, idiocy
and folly. Thus, it will thwart every chance of reaching peace in this
generation. As Oslo shattered the dream of Greater Israel, the
disengagement will shatter the dream of peace. That is its true
meaning."
Are you saying that by means of the disengagement plan Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon is deliberately working to prevent peace?
"Of course. Sharon doesn't believe in peace. He also knows that it's
impossible to achieve Greater Israel. So with one move he is now
burying both those dreams, which sprang from the Six-Day War. He never
believed in either dream. By giving up Gush Katif [the Gaza Strip
settlement bloc] and by means of the trauma that can be expected to
accompany the evacuation of the settlements, Sharon is hoping to save
part of Judea and Samaria. But he is hoping to do this in a situation
of prolonged absence of peace. That is the true rationale of his plan."
Or maybe you are against the plan simply because you are incapable of
accepting the uprooting of any settlements?
"I feel deeply agitated these days. What shocks me is that after 120
years of Zionism, it turns out that the Jews are still different from
other people. Jews are people who can simply be moved from one place to
another. And in their own country, too, and by their own government.
Look, if there was a situation in which there was no choice and that to
reach a solution, both a Jewish settlement and a Palestinian village
had to be evacuated, I might be capable of accepting that. Maybe. I'm
not sure. It is a terrible idea, the difficulty is tremendous. But
that's not the situation.
"It is perfectly clear that even if one Palestinian village blocks a
general peace agreement, the village will not be evacuated. Because the
Arabs are rooted people. They are planted in the soil. They have land
and they have dignity, even if in the meantime they do not have a
state. In contrast, Jews are people who can be moved. We ourselves are
now coming and saying so. This is a destructive message for our future
in this country. It is destroying both peace and Zionism. And it will
lead to the Arabs becoming convinced that with a little more effort, a
little more terrorism, it will be possible to go on uprooting us. So
the disengagement plan is undermining the whole Zionist idea. It is a
deep shock to the root of Zionism. And this agitates me. It is causing
me great inner turmoil."
Do you, too, view the evacuation of settlements as a population
transfer?
"The use of the word `transfer' is demagogic. Because in this case
citizens of the state are being expelled within the state. But think
for a minute what would happen if Israel were to decide to expel 8,000
Arab citizens from one place to another within its sovereign territory.
Think for a moment what would happen if 8,000 Arabs were removed from
their homes. What the court would say. What the media would say. The
demonstrations that would be held in Rabin Square. The scale of the
refusal to obey military orders. Who would support such refusal. After
all, it is entirely clear that it would not be allowed to happen. It
would be regarded as a brutal act that would be unacceptable."
So you are arguing that the human rights community in Israel has double
standards, that the Israeli democratic elite is ignoring the rights of
the settlers?
"Obviously. What a question. The settlers have no human rights. There
is one sector in Israel to which human rights do not apply - the
settlers. And now that truth has been exposed in the light of day. Now
it becomes clear that all the human rights rhetoric was a bluff. One
big lie. A total lie. Because if human rights exist, they are
indivisible. Therefore I, for example, am against the expulsion of
people from their homes by force in any case, be they Jews or Arabs.
But I belong to a negligible minority. The great majority in the
country supports the expulsion of Jews or Arabs, all subject to their
political agenda. So this whole world of the Association for Civil
Rights and the human rights organizations has now been exposed in its
vacuity. It's all one big bluff. It's all one giant deception that is
meant to serve the political goals of the left."
Are you accusing the Supreme Court as well?
"The Supreme Court prevented the transfer of the family of a terrorist
from Nablus to Gaza even when this could have deterred suicide bombers.
The Supreme Court prevented the expulsion of Bedouin who invaded firing
zones of the army in the Negev. The Supreme Court defended the rights
of Palestinians who were cut off from their land by the separation
fence. Therefore I would expect the Supreme Court to prevent the
expulsion of thousands of citizens from their homes by force.
"The willingness to send in the army against the settlers is appalling.
Let people decide whether they want to stay or not. Don't send their
army against them to crush their values and their homes and their
world. I will give you an example: the Soviet Union settled thousands
of Russians in the Baltic states to create a Russian foothold there. In
terms of international law, that act was like the settlement enterprise
in Yesha [the Hebrew acronym for the territories]. Not from my point of
view; from my point of view, Yesha is the Land of Israel and the Baltic
states are not Russia.
"But when Moscow withdrew and the Baltic states gained independence, no
one thought the Russian settlers had to be expelled from their homes.
The international community did not even consider the possibility. So
why are the behaving differently in our case? Why is such a cruel act
going to be done in our case?
"The State of Israel can decide that it is withdrawing and creating a
new border. But the act of expelling people from their homes by force
by means of the army is a violent act. It is an act that an enlightened
court should prevent. However, after I prepared a draft petition to the
High Court of Justice on this subject, it was explained to me that the
petition stood no chance. There is no chance that this enlightened
Supreme Court will rule that the expulsion of settlers from their homes
is illegitimate.
"The Yesha people [the settlers] never believed in that court. I too
was always suspicious. But it is clear - the system has no true moral
value."
Do you have similar complaints about the media?
"The media are mobilized in favor of disengagement. There is no
substantive discussion, they don't listen to any argument. They are not
asking whether the disengagement is good or not good. They are not
examining what it will lead to. Nor are they talking about the fact
that it is creating a precedent that will make it easier for another
government in the future to expel an Arab population from its homes for
security reasons of one sort or another."
Over the years, you held an ongoing dialogue with people on the left.
Do you now feel that your colleagues on the left have turned their
backs on you?
"They have turned their backs on themselves. They have subordinated
everything to the supreme goal of breaking the settlers. For them,
breaking the settlers is worth the loss of peace. For them, breaking
the settlers is worth trampling on human rights. Breaking the settlers
is worth the betrayal of all their values. Not my values - their
values. And all this because the settlers have become the enemy. What
the Arabs are for the right, the settlers are for the left: the
demonic, metaphysical enemy. So now they are ready even to support
Sharon in order to break this enemy. To see Sharon uproot his
favorites. You will agree with me that's insane. That it's totally
irrational."
Does the settler public feel that they have been thrown to the dogs?
"It's not just a feeling. Look at the way they are written about. If
you take the things your colleagues write and switch the word
`settlers' with the word `Arabs' every time, you'll be appalled. The
discourse is dripping with hatred. And it is a total, blind hatred.
Therefore the settlers' feeling of rejection and sense of persecution
is understandable. Not that they themselves have not contributed to the
radicalization. We too share in the blame. The refusals to obey orders
were a terrible mistake. The attempt to deter Sharon with threats only
played into his hands. The settlers should have clung to the
state-oriented line that the people of Gush Katif themselves
spearheaded from the outset. The line of the human chain. The line of
`We have love and it will triumph.'
"But now it is important for all of us to understand that the hatred
between the Israeli left and the settlers has reached a level that is
endangering the entire Zionist enterprise. From the left's point of
view, Israel is losing its right to exist because of the settlers; and
from the settlers' point of view, Israel is losing its soul if it
follows the path of the left. We have here full parallelism. Everyone
who feels such feelings of hatred should know that there are others who
feel exactly the same hatred toward them. And between this hatred and
that hatred we are liable to lose everything. Especially now, when the
disengagement is leading us toward a frontal clash in which people are
liable to be killed, in which blood is liable to be shed."
Do you really believe that the disengagement will reach the point of
bloodshed?
"I remember Yamit [Israeli settlement in northern Sinai, which the army
evacuated in 1982 so that the area could be returned to Egypt]. I was
in Yamit. Yamit was far more dangerous than people remember. There was
the bunker of the Kahane people. And there was a young person from the
Golan Heights who barricaded himself in one of the settlements with
booby-trapped grenades. And there was an uncompromising speech by one
of the leaders of Gush Emunim who spoke about martyrdom, pure and
simple. He was talking about mass suicide.
"So already in Yamit there were those who took fanatic logic to its
end. All the way to Masada. It was only by a miracle that it didn't
happen. Only by a miracle that it ended with foam sprayed on the
rooftops. But now we are heading for a situation that is much more
charged. Everyone in Yesha understands that the struggle for Gush Katif
is a struggle for home. Because if Gush Katif is uprooted, all the
settlements are undermined. The whole settlement enterprise is cast
into doubt. Therefore Gush Katif will become our Stalingrad. The
feeling will be that if this line is breached we are finished.
Everything is finished. That feeling will bring thousands of people
there, including hundreds of arms-bearing fanatics. And then a concrete
danger will arise that some of the settlers will embark on the path of
self-injury.
"I will fight against that. I will fight against refusal to obey orders
in the army and against suicide. I prefer to surrender. To leave
quietly, with rent clothes, with black armbands. But it's unlikely that
I will be listened to. The zealots will have the upper hand. Gush Katif
is liable to become Masada."
Are we headed for a second "Altalena"?
"If no national referendum is held, it is liable to be a huge
`Altalena' [the `Altalena' w as a weapons ship of the right-wing Etzel
(Irgun) underground movement which was sunk by order of the government
of the nascent State of Israel off the coast of Tel Aviv in June 1948].
`Altalena' will pale in comparison to what is liable to happen in Gush
Katif. Because you had [Menachem] Begin on the `Altalena,' and thanks
to Begin the matter ended after 20 were killed. Zionism was extricated
from the greatest danger it ever faced. But I don't see a Begin in the
Yesha leadership. Sharon's refusal to conduct a referendum is causing
the moderate leadership of the Yesha Council to lose status. Sharon is
choking politically his good friend `Zambish' [settler activist Ze'ev
Hever]. And by doing so he is strengthening the extremist forces,
strengthening Rabbi [Zalman] Melamed and Rabbi [Dov] Lior and the
rabbis who are calling on soldiers to disobey orders. So when the
moment of truth comes, it's not certain that Yesha will have a moderate
leadership that has authority and the ability to keep things under
control. And without that kind of leadership, without the greatness of
Begin, we could face a calamity."
Are you pointing a finger of blame at Prime Minister Sharon?
"I respect Sharon. I respect him in that he is the prime minister of
Israel. But I have no choice other than to impute to him full
responsibility and blame if, heaven forbid, blood is shed. Because he
is entering the collision knowingly. With eyes open. And he is refusing
any proposal, such as the idea of the referendum, which could prevent
the collision.
"Sharon is a man of force. He proceeds by means of traumas. He is a
master at creating traumas. He wanted a trauma in the evacuation of
Yamit and he wants a trauma now. He needs a national trauma to impress
upon both the Israeli public and the international community that it
will be impossible to do this again. So it's not beneficial for him to
reach understandings with the Yesha people - even though they
themselves surrendered when they agreed to a referendum. They served up
their surrender on a silver tray. They are actually only looking for an
honorable way to give up. But Sharon won't accept that.
"He is not going to a referendum because he needs the collision for his
scenario. So he is actually building up the extremist rabbis. Just as
he is making the extremists the kings of the Palestinian street, he is
making the extremists the kings of the settler public. He is convinced
that, as at Yamit, he will again he able to control the height of the
flames. To generate the necessary trauma without human loss. But I
think he is mistaken. As he was in Lebanon. I think he will not be able
to control the height of the flames. And therefore, unintentionally, he
is liable to lead us into a situation of total lack of control. He is
liable to lead us into a civil war."
That is an extremely grave accusation.
"I know. I am saying this with tears in my eyes. But I know Sharon. I
understand his method of operation. The man is a strategic and tactical
genius. He is one of the greatest commanders the Jewish people ever
produced in its entire history. And he's in a league of his own
compared to any other leader in this country. He is of a different
order of stature. But Sharon has no brakes. He never did. And the State
of Israel is now traveling in the brakeless car of Arik Sharon."
Is he dangerous?
"That's clear. He always was. The great sin of the Yesha leaders is
that when he operated in a way that favored us they ignored the danger
he embodies. And when the left screamed and yelled and warned about
him, we didn't listen. We knew the way he worked, but we liked it. We
committed a sin for which we are now paying. But exactly the same thing
is now happening to the left. So I am appealing to the fair-minded
people on the left and asking, Why are you mobilizing in his favor? Who
better than you know how dangerous the man is? And now you are going to
make him the ultimate leader of a whole generation? Will you take
responsibility for everything he does? Have you forgotten Lebanon? Have
you forgotten the 40 kilometers [the originally declared scale of the
Israeli incursion into Lebanon in 1982]?
"Don't you see that the disengagement is a wild gamble exactly like
Lebanon? Don't you understand that it won't end where you think it will
end? Or is it that your hatred of the settlers is so powerful that you
are foaming at the mouth and can't stop yourselves?"
Explain to me again exactly what it is that you accuse the prime
minister of.
"I accuse Arik Sharon of striving to generate a violent collision with
his faithful public of supporters whom he cultivated for years. Sharon
doesn't want it to end in a disaster. But contrary to his desire, it is
liable to end in a disaster. I say that he is playing a game that a
prime minister must not play. A prime minister must not bring about a
collision like this. That is why, when I saw how pathetic Benjamin
Netanyahu and Uzi Landau are, when I saw that there is no longer a
political force capable of blocking the move, I decided that I could no
longer remain silent. I just cannot. Because I see the train of Israeli
statehood and the train of the settlement enterprise hurtling toward a
collision. And I see everything going black. I see red. I see a civil
war. A civil war is the only thing that a prime minister of Israel has
no right to bring about."
Is Sharon leading us into bloodshed?
Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun in a field near his home in Alon Shvut, in
Gush Etzion. "What the Arabs are for the right, the settlers are for
the left: the demonic, metaphysical enemy."